Albert Camus was a thinker obsessed with a monumental question: If the universe is absurd (that is, if it lacks any purpose), and if human history is absurd, then is there such a thing as a good human life and can we create a successful ethical theory? For many centuries, philosophers derived their ethical theories and their accounts of the good life from claims about the purpose of the universe or the purpose of history or the intent of a god. To those philosophers, it may seem that deriving an ethics from an absurd world is to derive something from nothing. And, indeed, Camus described his task in a similar way: as being to "seek out and create, on the basis of negation, the positive values which will permit reconciliation of negative thought with the possibilities of positive action" (2022 [1946], 30). Or, as he describes this task in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, "this generation, within and around itself, on the basis of its negations alone, has had to restore a little of what makes the dignity of living and dying" (2022 [1957], 228). Here "negation" means the absurd, the painful fact that history and the universe are without purpose. Some people are rarely troubled by this question. For them, we come into life with things expected of us. Perhaps you are expected to learn, to succeed at school, to become a self-sufficient adult.

Achieving those things is hard work. Why make life more difficult by doubting your goals? Why add to your troubles by questioning whether your purposes are justified? If we doubt all our purposes, our life becomes unsettled, and our freedom becomes overwhelming. Is this not sufficient reason to avoid this question? But some people instead find that such a question compels their attention and their concern. They want to know what our place is in the order of things, even if the answer will discomfort us. Albert Camus was such a person, a person troubled by this question, but who also wanted a true answer to it. Throughout his work, he tried to understand the possibilities for human purposes in a history and a universe that are absurd. Camus is a strong and empathetic guide for those who find these questions haunting. Camus sees this question as essentially related to questions of justice.

Our need to understand our purposes is in part expressed by our revolt against a purposeless universe. But our need to foster progress toward a society where human beings can better pursue and satisfy their own purposes is in part realized by our revolt against human injustice. Thus, for Camus, the question, "What are our purposes?" is inseparable from the questions, "When is revolt justified? And how can one revolt in a just way?" Camus''s theory of revolt remains a compelling and challenging way to understand ethics and our moral duties. We can learn about the possibility of moral progress from careful reflection on his theory. Also, Camus was an active and important part of the political debates of his time. His time differed from our own in many ways. But there are also some problems of his time that remain with us and that are perhaps permanent challenges to the modern condition. And (as I argue in chapter 6 of this book), Camus foresaw a problem that, though only nascent in his time, has come to fruition in our own time.

The interesting parallels and contrasts with his time offer us an opportunity to reflect anew upon the political problems that we face. In this book, my themes are the relation between Camus''s metaphysical thoughts and his views on revolt and political action. For this reason, the main focus will be The Rebel (L''Homme révolté). I neglect other of his works, such as The Stranger (L''Étranger) and most of his plays. I also neglect his extensive discussions of aesthetics. The Rebel attempts many tasks, including that it offers a critical account of some strains of argument in philosophy over the previous two centuries, and also a critical evaluation of some revolutionary moments in the previous two centuries. But its primary contributions are that it seeks a way for human beings to confront the absurd while still developing and maintaining an ethics; and it offers a theory of when revolt is justified and how revolt can be ethical. Camus develops a unique understanding of human aspirations for justice.

His view is that human beings do have justified purposes, some of which arise from their human nature, but that these purposes are often uncovered and then realized and defended through revolt. Human beings must revolt against a purposelessness universe, in order to assert their own purposefulness; and they must revolt against human injustice, in order to discover and assert their purposes while striving to create a more just society (that is, a society where some of our purposes are better respected and are more likely to be realized). (excerpted from the Introduction).