 Royce’s philosophy of loyalty resembles existentialism in certain respects. Notable among these are the notions that we come to moral awareness in a world of already established aims and social projects, that moral responsibility requires a self-conscious and deliberate individual choice to embrace particular causes, and that the highest forms of ethical conduct involve dedication and effort in service of a cause that offers no promise of final success. Royce differs from later existentialists such as Camus and Sartre, however, in several important respects. Royce would not accept their notion that human efforts are finally absurd, unfolding against a backdrop of a meaningless and indifferent universe. On the contrary, Royce maintained that the concepts of ultimate meaning and reality are powerful and legitimate forces in our lives. With existentialism, Royce recognized the very real chasms that separate one person’s feelings, thoughts, and will from another: the experience of another may be inscrutable. At the same time, though, he insisted that we acknowledge the equally important fact that in ordinary social life minds frequently do work in concert. Groups of people often are unified in feeling, thought, and will by something that transcends any of the individuals present (Royce 1913 [2001, 239]).