Radical Responsibility

Radical responsibility is the early Sartrean idea that as agents, we exist as freedom without essence. Who we are is up to our choice, we are free to choose, and we are therefore respon­sible for who we are (Sartre 2007 [1945], 20).

The Sartrean idea of responsibility as radical self-determination continues to be discussed, though in the more recent hegemonial philosophical discourse, it is not always seen favorably. It is rejected simply as a “mistake” (Velleman 1989, 168) or as outright “incoherent” (e.g. Raz 1988, 155). Others refer rather positively to it, but find it necessary to amend the Sartrean pro­posal in important ways. Thus even its sympathetic readers find Sartre’s version either possible in theory, but overly “heroic” in practice (e.g. Korsgaard 2008, 62), or tragically self-defeating (Taylor 1988, 290).

Most straightforwardly, it has been claimed that radical self-determination is an “incoherent dream” because our biological and social nature partially settles who we are, and it is only against the background of those features that a self-determined agent can “develop and flourish” (Raz 1988, 155). It thus seems that some of our essence must precede our existence after all for us to be the autonomous persons we aspire to be. Not all of our aims and goals are subject to self-choice. Some are constitutive of who we are before self-choice can kick in. In defense of the Sartrean view against this allegation, it has been argued that the radical existentialist need not claim that our autonomy can develop and flourish in any direction we might choose; the existentialist claim is one about autonomy, not the development and flourishing thereof (Mendus 1989, 96ff.). Deciding against the goals and purposes that are necessary for the devel­opment of one’s autonomy might be bad, but still a choice.

The point in large parts of the more recent controversy is self-detachment, the idea that Sartrean self-choice is ex nihilo, as it were, rather than from the concerns and reasons which already make one the sort of agent one is (rather than having chosen them), and which are necessary as the starting point of any substantive self-scrutiny in which self-choice may become an issue. Such radical detachment is not entirely without defenders (it is sometimes recommended as the suitable theory of the self for Rawlsian liberalism [see Cohen 2008]). But most voices are critical. It is argued that “the feeling of radical freedom” is a “false sense” and a “mere pretense,” because however we look reflectively at our motivation and make it the object of our detached consideration, there’s always some motivation escaping our reflective gaze — our motivation to reflect (Velleman 1989, 168).

Against the last line of criticism, it has been argued that it presupposes that there is a “sub­stantial self” prior to the act of choice, and that this is a claim that Sartre would deny. Sartrean self-choice is not a self’s act of determining who it is to be. “On his view, the self is its choices” (Cohen 2008, 94). For self-choice, there is no self to start with; selfhood is the choice itself. But so far, this is only stating the “mystery” of self-creation that the critics of the idea have identified. Is there any way to make sound sense of it?

“We are taking the word ‘responsibility’ in its ordinary sense as ‘consciousness (of) being the incontestable author of an event or of an object’ ” (Sartre 1978 [1943], 553), Sartre claims in the famous passage on Freedom and Responsibility in his Being and Nothingness.

Before spelling this out further, it is worth noting that if this reading is correct, the criticisms (and perhaps even parts of the rare defenses) of Sartrean self-choice in the recent literature are wrong-headed insofar as they are predicated on self-reflection rather than pre-reflective self­awareness. Sartrean self-choice, thus reconstructed, is not about distancing oneself from the motives one happens to have, and treating them as objects of potential choice. It is not about self-evaluation in the sense of a second order stance, as some believe in the recent literature (see Taylor 1988; Velleman 1989). And neither is it about adopting the point of view of reason and distancing oneself from the inclinations one happens to have, as Kantian existentialists have it (see Korsgaard 2008).

This responsibility, however, is more radical than any higher-level self-management view has it, for it does not allow for the cheap excuse of “disowning” a deviant desire one has and thereby exculpating oneself from having it by taking a firm volitional stance against it — as it appears in Frankfurt’s conception, where deviant desires that are not in line with one’s volitional second-order stance appear as “one’s own” only in “a formal sense” and not “strictly” (Frankfurt 1998, 64). And similarly for Korsgaard’s conception, where one disowns one’s inclinations by reflectively setting one’s will against them (Korsgaard 2008, 59). From a Sartrean perspective, thus reconstructed, this seems entirely beside the point — and perhaps just as another attempt to find an excuse. Of course, our lowly inclinations and disruptive emotions, which we happen to dislike, are fully ours, too, and the proof is in the way we “know” them — however much we might strive to disown them. We are thus fully responsible for them, too, and can’t say that they are not “really” but only “formally” our own. Also, there seems to be no reason to assume that radical responsibility, thus reconstructed, should be at odds with the facts about our biological and social backgrounds. It is not the view that we can be whatever we like, irrespective of our biology and society.

Radical responsibility, thus reconstructed, is, at the basic level, simply the incontestable iden­tity and first-person authority that comes with self-awareness. But how is it connected to choice in a way that makes talk of responsibility meaningful? After all, being pre-reflectively aware of one’s attitudes as one’s own seems far from choosing (or having chosen) them.

Sartrean radical responsibility cannot plausibly be responsibility for being attentive. In order to make sense, Sartrean responsibility has to be of a different kind. In order to find out what it is, it is instructive to look at its opposite: Sartrean radical irresponsibility. Though Sartre could easily have chosen a case that concerns our alleged “biological nature,” it is our alleged “social nature” that provides him with the example in which he discusses the structure of radical irresponsibility (or “bad faith,” as he calls it). It is the famous example of a waiter who fully identifies with his social role (Sartre 1978 [1943], 59). The waiter is not inattentive; however, he attends to what it is he is doing in the wrong way, as it were. He fails to take the question of who he is to be up to himself. Rather, he takes his identity to be determined by the structure of generalized normative expectations of others that constitute his status. What makes Sartre’s waiter radically irresponsible is that he, by identifying fully with his social role, does not take the question of what he should be doing to be determined by what he himself wants; rather, he takes it to be settled by the social structure of commitments and entitlements that make up his role status. From his own perspective, he does not act in the way he acts simply because that’s what he chooses to do. Rather, he acts in this way because that’s what he thinks a waiter does, or should be doing.

The practical reasoning of Sartre’s waiter thus conforms exactly to the model Robert Brandom notoriously advertises as the right way of thinking about practical reason in social contexts. Brandom’s example is a bank accountant thinking about what clothes to wear at work. Brandom argues that he immediately proceeds from the belief that he is a bank accountant to the conclusion that he should wear a tie — without there being a question of whether or not he wants to stick to the rules, or some such (see Brandom 2001, 90f., where Brandom argues that special pro-attitudes from the side of the agent do not figure in such practical reasoning). Brandom argues that this is how practical reasoning is done, and Sartre, with the example of his waiter in mind, agrees — though the two part ways rather decidedly where Brandom argues that this is all there is to practical commitment, while Sartre says that while this is how people reason in everyday life, it is a radically irresponsible way of reasoning, because thinking in this way, people forget that if they let themselves be committed by social roles (“it is not about whether I want to do it, it is simply my duty or what is expected from me in my social role”), this is something they themselves choose to do and they have reason to choose to do so only if this is what they want. Letting oneself be committed by one’s social role is something one is fully responsible for — it is, after all, not the role that plays the role player, but the other way around.

Beyond commitment and identity, the problem with everyday irresponsibility also extends to authority. Sartre’s waiter, just as Brandom’s bank accountant, does not see himself as the “incontestable authority” of what he does. He is blind, as it were, for his first-personal authority, and thinks of authority only in societal terms. When he engages in his role, he does not think that what he does is something that is what it is in virtue of what he himself wants or intends. Rather, he thinks of it as something that is what it is in virtue of social roles and institutions and what society authorizes role occupants to do. He sees himself as a social role occupant through and through. Rather than knowingly playing his role, he — mistakenly, Sartre thinks — takes him­self to be his role. This is what he is responsible for, in a sort of culpable way: he takes himself to be externally determined in a way that hides a continuous series of personal choices behind a role structure. He thus misconceives of his role as what he is rather than something he just plays at being. But how is such role identification at odds with pre-reflective self-awareness? Can’t we be fully self-aware, and totally identify with our roles at the same time? How is full role­identification a failure of, or a compromised form of self-awareness?

Here are three ways in which pre-reflective self-awareness conflicts with the sort of awareness of one’s roles that we have when we fully identify with our roles.

First, self-awareness identifies, from the first-personal view, in an incontestable way. When we consciously intend and act, we might occasionally be mistaken about what it is we want to do or what we are doing, but we cannot be mistaken about the attitude’s being ours. Attitudes self-identify the subject. Role-awareness is not of this sort. The identity of the waiter at the Cafe de Flore is not established by the role occupant’s self-awareness. Rather, it is a matter of social identification, and occasionally, we might simply be mistaken about our role identities.

Second, self-consciousness differs from role consciousness with regard to the sort of commitments it involves. It has repeatedly been pointed out in the literature that we simply cannot estrange or distance ourselves from our own attitudes (see — with special reference to Sartre — Moran 2001). We cannot not care at all about what we think and want. And it is in virtue of our self-awareness of our thoughts and intentions that our attitudes are our commitments. “I believe that p, but -p” is a conflict of commitments, and though some­times, such cases of weakness of judgment may perhaps occur (Coliva 2015), it is not the normal case. Self-consciously judging that “-p” is believing that -p, and though contra­dictory beliefs might persist somewhere in our cognitive system, becoming first-personally aware of a contradiction sorts the matter out. One can have contradictory beliefs, but not in a self-aware or occurrent way. And mutatis mutandis for the case of “I intend to phi, but it is utterly bad/undesirable.” Similarly, self-awareness is the reason why we do not need a second-order desire to fulfill our desires for desires to motivate us, or a second-order inten­tion to do what we intend in order to be committed to act. It is in virtue of self-awareness that our attitudes are our commitments. This is different with role consciousness on both accounts. As a role occupant, I might occasionally find myself being committed, in my role identity, to views that personally, I do not hold to be true, and to intentions that person­ally, I hold to be utterly bad or undesirable. Luckily under such circumstances, however, the attitudes I am committed to in virtue of my role identity are not self-committing; thinking that what my role requires me to accept is neither true nor good puts me in an awkward position, but does not constitute a paradox. I might know what duties my social role of a waiter entails, but there is still, it seems, a meaningful question of whether or not I should actually play it. I need, it seems, a reason of my own in order to act (most plausibly, my wanting to play my role). For the commitments that come with a social role (ultimately, other people’s generalized normative expectations) are not of the self-committing sort that comes with the conscious having of an attitude.

Third, and beyond self-identification and self-commitment, self-awareness is self­authorization — what is discussed under the label of first-person authority. In virtue of my being conscious of what I want, I am in a uniquely authoritative position to know what it is I am doing. Occasionally, others might have better evidence and correct me, but our lives would be very different indeed if this were the normal case. First-person authority has a special role in practice. I might be ignorant about what it is I want in many ways, but what I am doing has its meaning in virtue of what it is I want to do, and this is up to me. Not quite so in the context of social roles. What it means if I raise my hand as a policeperson on the crossroad does not depend on what it is I meant to do, but rather on what it says about a policeperson’s raising his or her hand on the crossroad in the traffic code — and similarly for other role performances such as, e.g., speaking a language: what it is I am saying depends on the public meaning of the words I use rather than on what I want them to mean. In my role, I am, it seems, far from being the incontestable author of what it is I am doing. What I am doing is not under my own authority. Rather, I am authorized by the society that assigns my role. What it is I am doing is not up to me. I am, in this sense, not self-determined, but rather determined by social norms in terms of the generalized normative expectations of others.

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