Moral choice persists unchanged across historical situations
Evidence
It is true in the sense that we do not believe in progress. Progress implies amelioration; but man is always the same, facing a situation which is always changing, and choice remains always a choice in the situation. The moral problem has not changed since the time when it was a choice between slavery and anti-slavery – from the time of the war of Secession, for example, until the present moment when one chooses between the M.R.P. [Mouvement Republicain Poputaire] and the Communists. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 29
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s existentialism reading: this rejection of ‘progress’ as amelioration echoes Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence and contrasts with Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity. Also resonates with Heraclitus - same river, changing waters. — connects to: Human morality is contingent rather than invariant across circumstances. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 390; Moral values may have a shared universal core beneath cultural variation — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 955; Ethics abolishes itself when authenticity is found to depend on history — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 551 (+1 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that man is ‘always the same’ while situations change - and yet choice is always ‘a choice in the situation’ - packs the whole existentialist theory of history and morality into a few lines. Not a single-sentence point but a dense web: no progress, same moral man, situation-bound choice.
Related
Broader Connections
- Human morality is contingent rather than invariant across circumstances.
#contradicts(0.90) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 390 - Moral values may have a shared universal core beneath cultural variation
#corroborates(0.80) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 955