Sartre draws two conclusions: (1) No factual state of affairs, whatever it may be (the political and economic structure of society, a person's psychological “state,” the forces of globalization and economic competition), is capable by itself of motivating any act whatsoever. An act is a projection of the for-itself toward what is not.9 (2) No factual state of affairs can determine consciousness to apprehend it as a negation or a lack.10 Action is intentional. Intentionality involves seeing situations as lacking. From these considerations, Sartre establishes two central points. First, consciousness has the power to break with, or distance itself from, its past and its surrounding conditions, and to confer a new meaning on them. Perceiving one's condition as intolerable, Sartre writes, “Implies for consciousness the permanent possibility of effecting a rupture with its own past, of wrenching itself away from its past so as to be able to consider it in the light of a non-being and so as to be able to confer on it the meaning which it has in terms of the project of a meaning which it does not have.”11 The second point is that the actor's freedom is a basic condition of action, and the elements—reasons and motives—of actions can be grasped only by reference to this freedom. Reasons and motives “have meaning only inside a projected ensemble which is precisely an ensemble of non-existents. And this ensemble is ultimately myself as transcendence; it is Me insofar as I have to be myself outside of myself.”12
By positing the possibility of a nonexistent ideal state of affairs, the bad state of affairs in Rome provides a good reason for Constantine to make a new capital. (Again, to visualize a counterpart of Sartre's example to a contemporary business scenario, consider, say, a domestic firm's leaders weighing reasons for and against a decision whether to close a U.S. branch and set up outsourcing operations abroad.13 Compared with the as yet “non-existent ideal state of affairs,” that is, competitive advantage sought by reducing labor costs through outsourcing, the current “bad state of affairs,” that is, high labor costs and competitive disadvantage, give the company's executives a reason to establish a foreign manufacturing base.) Unless a reason is experienced as such, it is not really a reason.
Likewise, motives can be understood only in relation to an end. The nonexistent ideal state of affairs which I posit gives to a present motive (qua desire) its meaning (object or end), and if it is impossible to find acts without motives or prior reasons, it is because motives and reasons are integral parts of actions. However, the act is not explained by these partial structures alone. Rather, “it is the act which decides its ends and its motives, and the act is the expression of freedom.”14
It is significant to note that scholars who have employed virtue approaches to analyze business ethics have leaned on a traditional Aristotelian account of motives and reason.15 Motives, emotions, and attitudes are taken as objective existents that basically determine the executive or manager in what she or he does: Jack Welch created a “lean and mean” culture at General Electric because he is an aggressive, driven person with a realistic orientation. He developed such a character from his childhood upbringing.16 Such an interpretation of character traits can be found in virtually any business or leadership autobiography, from Donald Trump17 to Rudolph Giuliani.18 Reasons refer to the objective factors of a situation, which also have a determining role in what is actually done. So long as we see motives as determining and reasons as pointing to the objective facts, it is difficult to see how Sartre's point of view will provide us with an illuminating answer to the question: Which should have priority, motives or reasons?
On the objective or reasons side first, it is clear that Sartre acknowledges the standard meanings to a certain extent. Historians look to reasons or objective states of affairs to explain acts. Clovis's conversion to Catholicism is explained by reference to the power of the episcopate in Gaul, an objective fact. In this sense, Sartre writes, “the cause is characterized as an objective appreciation of the situation.”19 All the same, an “objective appreciation can be made only in light of a presupposed end and within the limits of a project of the for-itself toward this end.”20 The power of the episcopate is a reason for conversion for Clovis because he wants to conquer Gaul. Consequently, the meaning of reason is qualified as follows: “We shall therefore use the term cause for the objective apprehension of a determined situation as this situation is revealed in the light of a certain end as being able to serve as the means for attaining this end.”21 As compared to traditional meanings, it is not the objectivity of states of affairs that Sartre alters. After all, the Catholic Church of Clovis's time did or did not have power. The key point here is that constituting some state of affairs as a reason for acting depends on the ends we propose for ourselves. Think of a knife as an objective instrument; its instrumental implications depend on what we are about. Even though it is normally used for cutting, if I am hanging up a picture, I can use the knife handle as a hammer.22 A reason, then, as objective evaluation of situations, does not determine an action; rather, it “appears only in and through the project of an action.”23
We must have projected ourselves “in this or that way in order to discover the instrumental implications of instrumental-things.”24 An exposition of advertising strategies provides a somewhat more complex, yet highly apt example. Whereas we might think of the uses and appeal of automobiles as objective facts—there are sport utility vehicles (SUVs) for those with an interest in trendiness, spaciousness, luxury, and power, and there are small cars for those interested in economy and a competitive edge in tight parking conditions—a common practice in advertising takes advantage of the role of evaluation of given conditions by unique consciousnesses.
Thus, an advertising agency may write different advertising profiles for the same SUV for different audiences. One profile might develop the rugged, off-road capabilities of the vehicle; another, its practical appeal for parents (for example, so-called soccer moms); another, its greater safety and highway dominance relative to smaller cars; and a fourth, its sexiness. By projecting onto the SUV different sets of evaluative interests, the advertising agency has brought out (or created) varying use and appeal implications of the product. Such an advertising agency could well take these words of Sartre as a guiding precept: “The world gives counsel only if one questions it, and one can question it only for a well-determined end.”25 While reasons refer to objective calculations of a state of affairs in the light of given ends, motives refer to the subjective structures that Sartre sees as correlative with reasons. As he writes, “The consciousness which carves out the cause in the ensemble of the world has already its own structure; it has given its own ends to itself, it has projected itself toward its possibles, and it has its own manner of hanging on to its possibilities: this peculiar manner of holding to its possibles is here affectivity.”26
In projecting toward some end,