Reading Sartre's Second Ethics: Morality, History, and Integral Humanity

Reading Sartre’s Second Ethics: Morality, History, and Integral Humanity provides a comprehensive, reconstructive, and critical interpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s mature dialectical ethics. Generally referred to as the “second ethics,” the key texts are two posthumously published lectures, one delivered at the Gramsci Institute in Rome in 1964, the other scheduled to be delivered at Cornell University in 1965 but cancelled by Sartre in protest of U.S. foreign policy. Though quite different in content, method, and intended audience, Sartre gave both lectures the shared title “Morality and History.” This is because, Elizabeth A. Bowman and Robert V. Stone argue, these texts comprise a single, systematic ethic in two parts. The first part (Rome) focuses primarily on the ends or goals of historical conduct; the second part (Cornell) focuses primarily on normativity and its ambiguous place in lived moral experience. The Cornell text argues that the ethical task of “making the human” cannot be properly understood apart from a regressive and phenomenological analysis; the Rome text argues that the progressive and dialectical goal of historical conduct is, precisely, “integral humanity.” Taken together, the two texts demonstrate that integral humanity is always possible because the means to it can always be invented.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Reading Sartre’s Later Ethical Writings Today Abbreviations Part I: The Second Ethics: A Heuristic and Critical Prospectus Chapter 1: Unveiling Socialism’s “Ethical Structure” Part II: The Phenomenological Moment: What Morality is Made of Chapter 2: The Everyday Experience of Morality Chapter 3: The Types of Norms and What they Share Part III: The Regressive Moment: How Morality is Lived Chapter 4: The Livability of Norms I: Casuistry and Moral Comfort Chapter 5: The Livability of Norms II: Morality Is Impossible Today Chapter 6: Invention I: The Moral Moment in Historical Action Chapter 7: Invention II: The Vocation of Praxis for the Ethical Unconditional Part IV: The Progressive Moment: The Paradox of Ethos and the Means Beyond It Chapter 8: The Paradox of Ethos I: The Two Sides of Norms Chapter 9: The Paradox of Ethos II: The Actuality and Historicity of Norms Chapter 10: The Root of Ethics I: Colonist Morality as Alienated Humanity Chapter 11: The Root of Ethics II: Colonized Morality as Incipient Humanity Part V: Humanity is Always Possible Chapter 12: "Socialist Morality" and the Conduct of Revolution Conclusion: Inventing Humanity

About the Author :
Elizabeth A. Bowman is president and research associate at the Center for Global Justice in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Robert V. Stone is professor emeritus of philosophy at the C. W. Post Center of Long Island University. Matthew C. Ally is professor of philosophy at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York.

Review :
"Does Sartre, especially as uncovered in 'Morality and History,' speak to us today? Our answer is an emphatic, Yes!" And thus, this detailed study initiated by Elizabeth Bowman and Robert Stone is here brought fruitfully to completion by Mathew Ally. Ally, whose earlier Lexington book, Ecology and Existence: Bringing Sartre to the Water’s Edge, is well aware of our global responsibly for each other and for our existence on our planet. For example, the glass of healthy drinking water at my side unites me with everyone on earth. How? A progressive-regressive movement reveals to each of us that our individual actions are saturated with morality. Thus, our individual and collective life’s goal is unveiled before our own understanding as a free commitment. Here, in this book, if our leisure and commitment lead us to read this life-long study from beginning to end, or merely to open it here or there, we are always reminded of Sartre’s moral commitment, namely, that we are free, free to show us that we can directly invent ourselves as fully human at least as a goal. "The main point that Sartre’s morality of praxis tries to prove is just this: that humanity is possible."