ABSTRACT
Why is it that some people will act compassionately in certain situations when others will not? Why do some people lie or cheat or steal while others are honest in one, two, or all three of these ways? One way of answering these questions is to explain the aetiology of character traits, to point to the origins of character in nature or nurture or some combination of the two. But another, more fundamental kind of answer tries to explain the constitution of traits, to point to current facts about some people that make them behave compassionately or honestly in those situations. This is more fundamental because it identifi es more precisely the state of affairs whose origins the aetiological answer attempts to identify. It aims to tell us what character consists in. Once we know this, we can know what we need to change about ourselves in order to change our characters. We can also ask about the basis and reliability of our everyday beliefs about our own character traits and those of other people. Sartre’s famous theory of bad faith is an answer to this epistemic question, as we will see later on in this book. But he has also formulated a theory in answer to the constitutive question, and this is more fundamental in his philosophy than his account of bad faith, as we will also see, because he thinks of bad faith itself as something that character traits can consist in. Our investigation of Sartre’s philosophy of character will therefore begin with the constitutive question. But fi rst we need to clarify that question itself.
