conditions aside, to create Humanity, to engender Humanity; this is the ethical
relationship. And there is the struggle against scarcity.
(Hope 91 )
“To tell you the truth,” he admits, “I still don’t clearly see the real
relationship between violence and fraternity” (Hope 93 ). Two obstacles
he finds especially pressing. An adequate definition of fraternity without
terror has yet to be achieved before we can tackle the fraternity-terror
issue itself.^55 And in the meantime, as Le ́vy puts it, “If the idea of
revolution becomes identified with the idea of terrorism, it’s done for”
(Hope 96 ).
Sartre’s third attempt at an ethics seems stalled or balanced precar-
iously between these two existential promises and threats. If the ethic of
authenticity in theNotebooksexploited the nonobjectifying model of the
aesthetic gift, the Dialectical ethics faced the unpleasant challenge of
constructing a method to achieve such a society where positive reci-
procity could be realized. The third attempt harkens back, if only out of
hope in the face of despair, to theimaginary, as our sole possible resource
foreshadowed so starkly inSaint Genet.^56
Let us conclude our discussion of Sartre’s three attempts at sketching
an ethical theory with his words in memory of his former friend and
colleague, Albert Camus. In view of the foregoing reflections in this
chapter and earlier, they could easily have served as his own epitaph:
He represented in this century and against History the current heir to that long line
of moralists whose work constitutes perhaps what is most original in French letters.
His stubborn humanism, narrow and pure, austere and sensual, battled against the
massive and deformed events of the day. But inversely, by the persistence of his
refusal, against Machiavellians, against the golden calf of realism, he reaffirmed the
existence of moral fact at the heart of our age.
(Sitiv: 127 )
(^55) SeeHope 80.
(^56) See above,Chapter 11.
Sartre’s third, “Dialogical” ethics 381