Good day! Its @ladyhanabi and for today's article I'd like to give you some insights about Existentialist Ethics.
I. Brief Background of Philosopher
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was born on June 21, 1905, in Paris, France, Jean-Paul Sartre was a pioneering intellectual and proponent of existentialism. He wrote a number of books, including the highly influential Being and Nothingness, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964, though he turned it down. He had a relationship with noted intellectual Simone de Beauvoir. As a young man, Sartre became interested in philosophy after reading Henri Bergson’s essay “Time and Free Will.” He earned a doctorate in philosophy in Paris at the École Normale Supérieure, absorbing ideas from Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl and Heidegger, among others.
II. Specific Ethical Teachings
A. Basic Ideas of Existentialism
1. Reason is an inadequate instrument with which to comprehend the depth, mystery, and meaning of life.
The existentialists believed that life isn’t an equation or riddle to be rationally resolved; it’s more of a mystery to be lived. Reason can’t resolve our most pressing existential concerns; it can’t tell us the meaning of life. Theory, speculation, and metaphysical and moral abstraction are worth less than concrete reality.
2. Existentialism emphasizes concrete, personal experience over rational abstractions
The emphasis on the concrete is also captured in the existential dictum “existence precedes essence.” Existentialism emphasizes the human subject as the only ultimate source of morality. Only when we commit ourselves to some course of action do we act as moral agents.
3. Human beings are radically free
We are the ones who create the meaning, truth, and value in our lives, and we are totally responsible for our lives.
B. Freedom
Freedom derives from human consciousness. We are conscious of both objects in the world and of ourselves as subjects, and this self-consciousness is the source of freedom.
There is no escape from the fact that we are prisoners of freedom. We are alone; we are without excuses. It seems we are “condemned to be free.”
C. Angst, Bad Faith, and Authenticity
According to Sartre, when we encounter freedom and realize its paradox, we experience angst or anxiety. This anxiety results from the grave difficulty we have in accepting total responsibility for our acts that accompanies our freedom to create value.
So great is freedom and its accompanying angst, that it’s easier to deny freedom by avoiding painful decisions and pretending that freedom doesn’t exist.
Three ways to deny freedom:
1. Fail to choose
§ To not choose is itself a choice, thus non-choice doesn’t allow one to escape from freedom
2. Serious-minded
§ To pretends that some objective values dictate the right choice for them
3. Bad faith
§ Acting inauthentically or in bad faith by thinking of ourselves as passive objects manipulated by other people, social conventions, religious commands, or moral codes
§ If we do have the courage to create value, the courage to commit to a course of action and accept full responsibility for our choices, we act authentically, or in good faith.
III. Conclusion
An Existentialists believes that a person’s life is nothing but the sum of the life he has shaped for himself. At every moment it is always his own free will choosing how to act. He is responsible for his actions which limit future actions. Thus, he must create a morality in the absence of any known predetermined absolute values. God does not figure into the equation, because even if God does exist, he does not reveal to men the meaning of their lives. Honesty with oneself is the most important value. Every decision must be weighted in light of all consequences of that action.
Here are some Quotes from Jean Paul:
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
When the rich wage war it's the poor who die.
If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.
Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
Life begins on the other side of despair.
Commitment is an act, not a word.
Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.
Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.
Tell me your thoughts about Existentialist Ethics.
That's it! Hope you have learned something from this article.
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In depth I must say.