APSS1A02 Introduction to Western Theories of Human Nature

Lecture Nine
Existentialism: Freedom without
Human Nature
Outline
Existentialism: concepts and hist
ory
Forerunners of existentialism
Sartre’s theory of radical freed
om
How are we to live without human
nature?
Existentialism
Existentialism is the philosophic
al and cultural movement which hol
ds that the starting point of phil
osophical thinking must be the exp
eriences of the individual. Moral
and scientific thinking together d
o not suffice to understand human
existence, so a further set of cat
egories, governed by “authenticit
y", is necessary to understand hum
an existence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existent
Themes of existentialism
Existence (consciousness) precedes ess
ence.
We are abandoned by God.
Life is absurd.
Anguish is the result of our existenti
al crisis.
My existence is a matter of nothingnes
s, or void.
Man is condemned to be free, and must
take full responsibility of his own ch
oice.
Existentialist thinkers at a
glance
Søren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855)
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(1821-1881)
Friedrich Nietzsc
he
(1844-1900)
Albert Camus
(1913-1960)
Jean-Paul Sartre
(1905-1980)
Absurdity and God Dostoevsky
Life is meaningless and hopeless.
The only way to overcome despair
is to accept it, so that you will see
the point of turning to God.

Yes. Everything can be

permitted in the
absence of God. Only
faith can help us.

Or else you will end up

in an existential crisis.
Kierkegaard
God is dead
 God is dead.
 We all have killed Him.
 It means that we destroyed our
faith in God through our modernity.
 Without God, now we are
abandoned.
 We have to depend on ourselves,
to shun cowardice, and have a will
to power.
 We have to be superman, making
a life of our own.

Nietzsche
The absurd: Camus’ two st
ories
‘The Myth of S The Stranger (1
isyphus’ (194 942)
2)
Summing up: Any solution to the e
xistential crisis?
1. Theistic existentialism:
 Turn to religious faith when life i
s absurd.
2. Nihilism (Nietzsche):
 No values are necessary. It is all
up to the individual to choose and
create his own life.
3. Humanism (Sartre):
 With the abandonment, man is condem
ned to be free; but it also means t
hat freedom is the foundation of al
 Existentialist Ethics:
Sartre’s Theory of Radical
Freedom
Sartre’s works
Being-in-itself and Being-
for-Itself
How are we to entertain the idea that
things in the world are meaningless?
Sartre’s answer:
 They constitute the Being-in-Itself: the
y are purposeless, merely brute facts in
the world, and independent of our consc
iousness.
But our existence as a conscious subje
ct (the Being-for-itself) is differen
t: we can be conscious of objects and
be conscious of ourselves. Such a cons
cious being can impose meanings onto t
Radical freedom
 Consciousness thus has the power to create po
ssibilities and impose a nothingness (negatio
n) in the things themselves.
 Examples:
◦ ‘I am not satisfied.’
◦ ‘God does not exist.’
◦ ‘Wong Ching Wa is not a scholar.’
◦ ‘I have not lived up with the principle of
justice.’
 Sartre thus argues: whatever meaning we find
in a situation, this is out of our freedom to
perceive the world this or that way. We have
to be responsible for what we see.
The indeterminacy of choic
e
So are our lives determined by Go
d, human nature, or morality?
No. It’s a matter of how you per
ceive your life. Suppose you are b
roken and turn to religion, is it
supposed to be grounded in the mes
sage of God? People can very well
see this as a reason not to believ
e in God. (Same for the notion of
human nature and morality.)
Escape from freedom: bad f
aith
The only thing that we cannot choose i
s not to be free.
But freedom produces in us the feeling
of anguish, a general anxiety that we
are overwhelmed by too many choices.
One way to escape from our anxiety aro
used by our freedom is bad faith—a se
lf-deception that we are forced by cau
sal laws to do what we choose.
How are we to live?
Live with an ethic of authenticit
y (“Be true to yourself”)
Stick to the present, cut off our
life from the past and the future
—for nothing forbids me to change
my mind and make a new choice!
Try not to trust the theories of
human nature: they only give us ex
cuses to deny our freedom.