Sartre offers no defense of why existential honesty beats self-deception

Evidence

Since one’s awareness of the inherent unjustifi ed nature of action (and hence the absence of a determinate decision procedure) motivates anguish, Sartre calls hiding from this awareness “cowardly.” Of course, Sartre’s exhortation to honestly confront the fact that our actions are inherently unjustifi ed, and hence to stand courageously in the face of anguish, may well appear to amount to little if anything more than rhetoric. Why, aft er all, should one value existential honesty over self-deception, especially since confrontation with value invention provokes anxiety? Why not lie to oneself when doing so feels better than existential honesty? Th e demand for an account of why one ought to choose existential honesty over dishonesty might itself be unreasonable, since this demand requires an answer to the skeptical question, Why be moral? Sartre would likely argue that none of the traditional answers are at all satisfying: acting morally is in your (enlightened) self-interest, or the only way to remain rational (instrumentally or otherwise), or to fulfi ll some intrinsic teleological end or purpose. Consequently, it would be surprising if Sartre, at least at this point in his career, thought that such a question could be answered. It is, aft er all, up to you to decide whether you want to live an authentic life. Nothing more can be provided. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 188

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: This exposes that Sartre’s rhetoric of cowardice/courage has no actual normative grounding—the skeptic’s question ‘why be moral’ is simply abdicated, with authenticity left as a pure choice.
• QUESTION: Does Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity supply the normative grounding Sartre here refuses? This is precisely the Beauvoir-answers-where-Sartre-fails thesis central to the reader’s project.
• XREF: Directly relevant to Beauvoir’s Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté, which arguably tries to answer the ‘why choose honesty’ question Sartre leaves open. — connects to: Sartre offers no positive account of resources one provides to another’s freedom — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 656; Sartre’s denial of ontological being-for-others grounds his hostile intersubjectivity — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 656; Sartre explicitly denied any pre-existing moral path for human choice. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 1136

Broader Connections

• Sartre offers no positive account of resources one provides to another’s freedom #corroborates (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 656
• Sartre’s denial of ontological being-for-others grounds his hostile intersubjectivity #expands (0.70) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 656