A single free person cannot generate genuinely moral values.
Evidence
For the abstract minded: a world with only one free person might include values but those values would not be moral values. Here it might also be added that while intersubjectivity gives rise to distinctly moral (Other-regarding) values, intersubjectivity also turns out to be a necessary condition for normative objectivity. Beauvoir indicates this line of analysis at several points, for instance, when she claims, “Man can fi nd a justifi cation of his own existence only in the existence of other men… . To will oneself free is also to will others free” (EA, 72–73; MA, 103–104). — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 218
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines moral value as necessarily Other-regarding, distinguishing mere values from moral values via intersubjectivity.
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s Continental background on Husserl’s Ideas II intersubjective objectivity, and Beauvoir’s famous formula will oneself free is to will others free. — connects to: Man is condemned to be free because he creates neither himself nor his values. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 13; Nothing justifies the values a free being adopts since freedom grounds all values — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 250; Appealing to transcendent values secretly denies one’s own freedom as the source of normativity. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 198 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Nothing justifies the values a free being adopts since freedom grounds all values
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 250 - The spirit of seriousness treats values as absolute rather than made by human freedom
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1520 - Appealing to transcendent values secretly denies one’s own freedom as the source of normativity.
#corroborates(0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 198