evinces a characteristically Sartrean regard for imaginative consciousness as
value-constituting. In the language ofThe Imaginary, it conceives of value as
an image demanding to be realized.It is on this value image that Sartre’s first subsidiary argument rests: “In
fact, in creating the man each of us wills ourselves to be, there is not a
single one of our actions that does not at the same time create animageof
man as we think heoughtto be” (EH 24 , emphasis added). And later,
“The fundamental aim of existentialism is to reveal the link between the
absolute character of the free commitment, by which every man realizes
himself in realizing atypeof humanity – a commitment that is always
understandable, by anyone in any era – and the relativity of the cultural
ensemble that may result from such a choice” (EH 43 , emphasis
added).^17 This normative image appears in Sartre’s writings from then
on. Without further defense, he appeals to what has become a common-
place in axiological ethics such as that endorsed by Max Scheler.^18
In this first subordinate argument, it is the value image which invests
individual choice with collective import: “I am fashioning a certain
image of man as I choose him to be. In choosing myself, I choose
man” (EH 25 ). Consider Sartre’s reference toimage, not rule, in these
remarks. It is the indirect communication of such value images through
imaginative literature that has become the hallmark of existentialism.
- 2 In what appears to be a bold and unexpected appeal to Kant, Sartre restates his
moral imperative in terms of the “universal legislator” formulation of the
Categorical Imperative.^19 Note that he does so in the context of existential
(^17) We are reminded of his appeal to “types” in his early Nietzschean fableThe Legend of Truth
(see above,Chapter 2 ).
(^18) Sartre listed Scheler among those whose work he was proposing to study at the French
Institute in Berlin (seeSME 38 ). He and Beauvoir were impressed by his book onThe
Nature and Forms of Sympathy( 1928 ) and he certainly was familiar with Scheler’s famous
theory of the material a priori in ethics, for he remarks inBN: “As Scheler has shown, I can
achieve an intuition of values in terms of concrete exemplifications” ( 93 ). Though that work
was not translated into French until 1955 , Arlette Elkaı ̈m-Sartre suggests that he might have
read its German original ( 1913 – 1916 ) (seeWD-F 288 ,n. 1 ). Actually, he refers explicitly to
Scheler’sFormalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Valuein hisNotebooks for an Ethic,
composed in 1947 – 1948 (see 252 and 275 ). For Beauvoir’s second thoughts on Scheler’s
19 political character, see aboveChapter^2 , note^23.
“Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of
nature.”Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals( 1785 ), in Immanuel Kant,Ethical Philoso-
phy, 2 nd edn., trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994 ), 30 [ 421 ].
238 Existentialism: the fruit of liberation