Help Paper

Sartre’s Ethics

1905 - 1980

•  French philosopher, novelist, and playwright •  Key figure in ExistenBalism

Words to ponder

•  Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

•  Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

•  Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

Overview

•  Influence of Phenomenology •  Sartre’s ontological account of what it is to be human. – groundlessness and radical freedom which characterize the human condiBon.

– Unlike the unproblemaBc being / existence of the world of things.

•  The self needs projects, which can be viewed as aspects of an individual’s fundamental project (who and what you intend to be and do) and moBvated by a desire for "being" that exists within the individual's consciousness.

•  The source of this project is a spontaneous original choice that depends on the individual's freedom. However, the self’s choice may lead to a project of self-decepBon such as bad faith, where one’s own real nature is discarded to adopt that something else.

•  Escape self-decepBon is through one’s authenBcity.

•  For Sartre, my proper exercise of freedom creates values that any other human being placed in my situaBon could experience. (Sounds like Kant?)

•  So each authenBc project expresses a universal dimension in the singularity of a human life.

Ethical Views

•  Are you unhappy? In circumstances that limit you?

•  We only have ourselves to blame.

Ethical Views

•  Can’t blame: – parents or teachers or friends for their influence.

•  If they influenced us, it is because we have allowed them to do so.

Ethical Views

•  When we allow others to influence what we really want, we are inauthenBc human beings living in “bad faith”.

How does bad faith happen? •  try to get along •  don’t have moral courage to be yourself and lead your own life

•  Instead, we dri^ from thing to thing, being "controlled," so we think, by external circumstances.

Key NoBons in Sartre’s Ethics

•  FacBcity •  AuthenBcity •  Existence precedes essence

FacBcity

•  FacBcity is the collecBon of elements against which an individual is “defined” (by society vs. by oneself?)

•  For example, all the things you inherit: – gender, perceived race, and naBonality

•  our own pasts are an element of our facBcity

AuthenBcity

•  AuthenBcity is related to freedom •  The role of facBcity in relaBon to authenBcity involves le`ng one's actual values come into play when one makes a choice.

AuthenBcity

•  In contrast to this, to be inauthenBc is the denial to live in accordance with one's freedom.

•  For example, pretending choices are meaningless or random, or convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, to a sort of "mimicry" where one acts as "one should.”

AuthenBcity

•  How one should act is o^en determined by an image one has of how someone like yourself such as oneself (e.g., prosBtute, etc.) acts.

•  Closely follows social norm. •  The main point is the a`tude one takes to one's own freedom and responsibility, and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom.

Existence precedes Essence

•  The noBon that there is an existence before essence is the belief that each person has an authenBc idenBty that exists outside of the social construcBon of one’s self and the facBcity that surrounds each person.

Existence precedes Essence

•  The struggle for an existenBalist hero is to behave in a manner that represents their authenBc self, and this is the struggle for Lizzie.