Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen West. This is Philosophies This.

So this is part three of this series we've been doing on the work of Albert Camus. Consider listening to the last two before this one.

But, you know, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life. Solidarity was the concept that Camus laid out in his book, The Plague.

Where he says that affirming life as it is means affirming that other human

beings live in the same world that you do, and that when the absurd comes knocking at your

door, whatever it is, solidarity means to affirm that these people face a similar set of

existential dilemmas that you do as a being, that to ignore the people around you, or to justify

their suffering with reasons for why they deserve it, well, to

Camus, this is fundamentally to deny something important about the reality that you live in.

Now, as we know, none of this is grounded for him in a philosophical system. As we've talked

about, this emerges for him simply from a lucid affirmation of our own nature and the nature

of the universe, the tension between those two. And as I teased at

the end of last episode, this concept of solidarity will become the foundation for extending what

he thinks we can say from this place of lucid revolt. Solidarity is going to allow him to make a case

for justice. But it can be confusing to hear that at first. Like, how in God's name is he going to

pull something like this off?

Justice requires laws.

Laws are theoretical abstractions.

Camus the kind of guy on Halloween that'll steal candy from someone dressed up as a theoretical abstraction.

He doesn't like them.

Certainly not when they claim to be universal.

He lays out his case for this justice of his

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