EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
What problems
cover up the
concept of
FREEDOM?
 Problems on Freedom
• The traditional debate consists of a series of
arguments that claim in their various ways
that free will is an illusion and that everything
that happens, including everything that
people do, is causally or logically necessitated.
• God’s omniscience, for an instance, ensures
that God knows exactly what a person will do
in the future. For God, a person cannot do
otherwise and is therefore not free.
 Probable Solution to the Problem
• The Theory of Freedom offered by existential
phenomenology on the other hand attempts to
demystify free will by showing that is an intrinsic
and necessary feature of the human condition: a
feature that is directly implied by the very nature
of consciousness as being-for-itself.
• Acting freely is not acting in a random and
chaotic manner. It is acting with reason and
purpose in a world that is structured and
predictable to a significant degree.
 The Necessity of Freedom
• There is an internal relation existing between what is free and what
is transcended by freedom and is not free. This internal relation is
best understood, at least initially, in terms of the internal relation
existing between past and future.
• Certainly, it is Sartre’s view of temporality his view of the for-itself
as essentially temporal, which renders plausible his view of the for-
itself as necessarily free.
– Being-in-itself (en soi: unconscious)
– Being-for-itself (pour soi: conscious)
– Being-in-itself is concrete, lacks the ability to change, and is unaware
of itself. Being-for-itself is conscious of its own consciousness but is
also incomplete. This undefined, undetermined nature defines man.
Since the for-itself lacks predetermined essence, it is forced to create
itself from nothingness. Instead of simply being, as the object of in-
itself does, man, as an object of for-itself, must actuate his own being.
 The Necessity of Freedom
• The freedom of the for-itself consists in this perpetual
opening up of the possibilities of being. That is, the for-
itself perpetually discovers itself in a world of possibilities
which it realizes by virtue of its being a temporal surpassing
towards the future.
• The for-itself cannot surrender its freedom. It can never
render itself an object causally determined by the physical
world, for the very project of surrender, the very attempt
to render itself causally determined, must be a free choice
of itself.
• The for-itself does not choose itself as a freedom, it is
necessarily free. It is condemned to be free by virtue of its
existence as a non-being that must be its own nothingness.
 The Necessity of Freedom
• The for-itself, as freedom and consciousness of freedom,
must be a free surpassing negation of the given situation. It
must perpetually transcend facticity. Facticity is the world
around a person in so far as it presents a constant
resistance to his actions and projects.
• The for-itself is, so to speak, perpetually striving to escape
from the prison of facticity without being able to do so.
• The future is the for-itself in so far as the for-itself is that
which exist beyond itself as a perpetually indeterminate
being. The future is what the for-itself lacks; the for-itself is
this lack. The for-itself is free because the future, far from
being that which places external constraints upon the free
transcendence of the for-itself, is the for-itself as that which
the for-itself is not yet.
 The Necessity of Freedom
• Freedom is not the capacity of consciousness;
freedom is of the very nature of
consciousness. Freedom is not an essence,
just as consciousness is not an essence. It is
not a potential that exists prior to being
exercised. Freedom is its exercise.
Action, Choice, and the Indeterminacy
of the Self
• The defining characteristic of an action, as distinct from mere accidental
act, is intention.
• The fundamental project of the for-itself is to be God. Each for-itself aims
to be a for-itself-in-itself in its own way.
• A fundamental choice is a choice of the self that aims to establish an
individual for-itself as a being that is no longer in question.
– Example: forcing oneself to believe that he is or he is not.
• A person is what he has decided to be, but he cannot really be it because
it is always possible to decide otherwise.
• Existential view of lack: when the for-itself chooses a particular course of
action it must choose it in terms of perceived lack. People are defined by
what they lack. The for-itself always perceives its situation as lacking
something.
Action, Choice, and the Indeterminacy
of the Self
• The claim that the for-itself cannot not be free
sheds light on the nature of commitment. It
consists entirely in the constant reaffirmation
of certain choice set against the ever present
lurking possibility of a change of mind.
• When people say, for example, “I have no
choice but to act as I do,” they ignore the fact
that they can choose to do nothing.