ABSTRACT

To this point, the ‘violent Sartre’ that has been reconstructed is an absolutist against terrorism. He is also a moralist concerned with the conduct of projects of counter-violence even when the objective situation demands the reclamation of humanity. As Sartrean scholarship begins to rediscover his work in the aftermath of 9/11, this reconstructed ‘violent Sartre’ is capable not only in explaining the different degrees of moral toleration we have for different projects of violence with different causes, uses of violence, and different kinds of violence, it also explains why violence may be illegitimate even if the source is a legitimate authority, demonstrates that wars with ends such as ‘justice’ and ‘freedom’ may at times fail to employ morally excusable means, and explains how ideologies of violence is used to legitimize itself as a project of morally impermissible use of violence. More importantly, it refocuses the debate between violence and morality: in situations where counter-violence has a legitimate claim, the issue of justifi cation should depend on whether they undermine or confl ict with the end of reaffi rming humanity.