S6 Philo Jean-Paul Sartre: Radical Freedom

Part I. The Human Being as a Conscious Project

The starting-point: “God does not exist” (p. 392*).

• There is no creator God, no supreme intelligence.

o “There is no universe other than a human universe, the universe
of human subjectivity” (p. 396*)
• This means there is no human essence that is pre-fixed, unchanging,
and universal.
• The implication for us is that there is no single and set way of being
human. We are free.
o The idea, for instance, of going against God’s will or against
human nature, loses justification: no one can appeal to the idea
of divine law or to a human essence.
▪ What could this mean for people who have been
marginalized throughout history: women, colored people,
the formerly colonized, etc.?

“Existence precedes essence” (p. 391*)

• There is no God and thus, there is no human essence that would come
first and of which we are mere versions or samples.
• We exist first: without having made any prior decisions about it, we
find ourselves always already in the world.
o First is the fact of existence. But apart from this fact, there is
nothing else. In some way, we human beings are nothing (in the
sense that we are not anything in particular; we are not samples
of some predetermined essence). There are things in the world
and they are mostly inert. Human beings are nothing: no-thing.
We are different from things that are not aware.
o We are not trees or stones. We are not en-soi. We are conscious
and as such, we can see ourselves into the future. We can
project ourselves onto something or somewhere else. We can
make decisions for ourselves. The human being is pour soi.
o Note, however, that while there is no human essence, Sartre
talks about a “universal human condition”. By this he means
some facts about being human that we all share: “What does not
vary is the necessity for him to exist in the world, to be at work

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there, to be in the midst of other people, and to be mortal there”

(p. 395*).
▪ We are “being in the world”. We can transform the world
through work. We are always already being with others.
We are being towards death (we will all die).

(Wo)man is nothing else but what he makes of himself/herself (p. 392)

• The human being is a plan, a project that is aware of itself (p. 392).
We exist and we hurl (or project) ourselves into what we are not. We
are a conscious project: we are able to see ourselves in situations that
are not yet or are not in the present.

• “Woman is what she is not and she is not what she is”.
o This means that one is not only what one is at this very moment
in the present, one is also what one can become in the future.
o So, there are facts that you did not choose (your existence,
things that belong to the past). And yet you exist at this very
moment. However, this present you are in does not hold you
down. As a living and conscious project, you can go beyond and
transcend the present and hurl yourself into the future.
▪ Think about what this could mean for people who have
been marginalized throughout history: women, colored
people, the formerly colonized, etc.
▪ Think about what this could mean for young people.

• This also means that we are nothing outside of our actions.

o Great figures in the history of mankind are looked up to not for
whatever unused potential they had. We call them great because
of their deeds.
o We define ourselves not by what we harbor inside of us or
merely by our hopes and dreams. We define ourselves, that is
the kind of persons that we are, by the decisions and actions we
take.

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When a human being chooses herself, she chooses (for) the whole of
humanity as well; she is “responsible for all men” (p. 392 bottom)

• Our every action, even the “smallest” ones (like deciding to get up in
the morning), creates an image of humanity.
• When we choose an action, we attach value to it. In choosing an
action, we affirm it as good. Our choices carry weight because we give
them weight.
o Possible implication: there might not be inherently good or bad
actions.

Part II. 3 moods or states of the human being

• By talking about these 3, Sartre tells how the human being exists now,
given the idea that there is no God and that we are free.

• (Wo)man is anguish or anxiety (pp. 392-393*). This is our state or

condition once we realize the enormity of our freedom and see its
implications.

o We are free to choose for ourselves. One might say, at long last,
we have the freedom to do whatever we want—but what should
we do now then?
o We are in a state of anguish or anxiety once we understand that
when one chooses for oneself, one also chooses for other
people—for the whole of humankind, according to Sartre.
▪ It is not only that you have to make a decision for yourself
(which is daunting enough sometimes), your choice is a
choice for everyone else at the same time.
• Imagine that you are Moses or some military
commander or some political leader: Your choices
matter because you are not only choosing for
yourself but also for other people.
▪ There are people who find comfort in the idea that their
fate is not or was not every totally in their own hands: “I
was born poor”, “My parents were drunkards”, “I simply
followed orders”. All of these statements and sentiments
signal bad faith: our tendency to deceive ourselves about
the nature of our freedom and our responsibility. Those

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who act in bad faith convince themselves that our choices

do not really matter, or that we are not totally responsible
because there were other factors or people involved, or
that we would do or would have done better if only the
circumstances were more favorable…

• Abandonment or forlornness: this signals a sense of loss and

solitariness
o There is no God and thus there are not eternal values.
o “If God did not exist, everything would be permissible/possible”
(p. 393*). We have nothing and nobody to cling to.
o No human being can make appeals to God or to so-called eternal
values. “We are alone, with no excuses”. (p. 393*)
o “Man is free. Man is freedom”. This means that there are no
excuses—we are totally on our own.
o Sartre says, oxymoronically, “Man is condemned to be free” (p.
394).
▪ We are condemned because we were thrown into the
world; we had no choice in the matter. Here we are. We
exist as beings who can choose.
▪ We are free and we have to make decisions and take
responsibility for our actions.

• Despair: the basic idea here is to act without hope

o The world contains external factors (natural forces, accidents,
facts of physical nature) that may thwart our plans.
o The world is also full of people who are as free as we are, who
are freedom as well.
o I am free to act in this world and yet there is not guarantee that
I will succeed to become what I project myself to be.
o Should I stop acting? Should I simply give in and fall into
inaction? No!
o Sartre proposes a particular attitude: “optimistic toughness” (p.
394*). We should not fall into quietism. We accept the possibility
of defeat, the fact of other people, the fact that the world may
not cooperate with our will. But we will act “as if” we will get
there, “as though” our efforts will bear fruit.