Ethics in The Age of Reason

Abstract

The relations between good faith, bad faith, sincerity, pure reflec tion, conversion, and action in Sartre's philosophy are complex and often debated, debates which are further complicated by the often held belief that Sartre's philosophy itself underwent significant changes, such that his later writings exhibit a distinct break or even inconsistency with his earlier writings. While more recent scholarship has argued that there is consistency between Sartre's later writings on ethics,1 most specifically the Notebooks for an Ethics', and Sartre's earlier writings, primarily Being and Nothingness (hereafter BN), few scholars have looked for support for this consistency beyond BN, and none, it appears, have specifically focused much attention on Sartre's Roads to Freedom series of novels.2 This is an area of research that could provide both valuable insight into the complexity of Sartre's thoughts about ethics, and further evidence of Sartre's open ness in the early stages of the development of his philosophy to the possibility of escaping bad faith and converting to an authentic lifestyle. Accordingly, this paper is an attempt to begin overcoming a gap in the literature on Sartre's philosophy, and focuses specifically on the first novel of the Roads to Freedom series, The Age of Reason (hereafter AR). This project thereby is undertaken with two goals in mind: (1) bring attention to the philosophical worthiness of a novel that has been largely ignored, or even outright dismissed as too lit erary, by Sartre scholars, and (2) provide more evidence to the col lective project of showing that Sartre's later account of an ethics is consistent with, and even implicit within (even if somewhat undevel oped in), his earlier writings.3 These tasks are accomplished by (1) investigating the ethics presented in AR, with specific focus on the displays of bad faith, good faith, and the hint of the possibility of conversion, (2) showing the ethical theme of the novel is similar to the discussions of ethics in BN, and (3) offering some consideration to how AR provides insight into the development of Sartre's ethics, insight that is beyond what is made available through BN. Upon