How Does Sartre Think That Humans Are Distinct From Animals

Sartre: Radical Freedom

(This is a summary of a chapter in a book I used in university classes: Xiii Theories of Homo Nature .)

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 -1980) was French republic's nigh important philosopher for much of the twentieth-century as well as an of import novelist and playwright. Sartre is classified every bit an existentialist. This means at least iii things. Sartre is interested in: 1) the uniqueness of an individual life, not abstract theories nigh a shared man nature; 2) the pregnant of life from a subjective betoken of view; and 3) the freedom to choose one's projects, meanings, and values. To better grasp existentialism, hither is a very brief sketch of some of a few of the philosophers who influenced Sartre.

The Danish Christian Soren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855) is usually thought of as the first existentialist, although there is an existential dimension in many previous Christian thinkers specially Augustine and Pascal. Like Marx, Kierkegaard reacted to Hegel's philosophy, rejecting its abstruse metaphysics and focusing instead on individuals and their choices. Kierkegaard believed people generally choose one of the following as their bones attitude toward life: 1) they searched for pleasure; ii) committed to family, work, and social responsibility; or 3) concentrated on religion and the divine. The latter life is the best but it involves taking a "leap of faith." [Kierkegaard writes of his agony near choices and their implications as passionately equally anyone.] What is most important about Kierkegaard's thought for existentialism is its turning away from objective truth to focus on subjective consciousness.

The other seminal figure in existentialism is the atheist Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 -1900), who is famous for declaring that "god is expressionless." The idea is that religion no longer plays a very pregnant role in western culture, we have seen through its illusions, and we demand to notice the meaning of life without invoking gods. Nietzsche thinks nosotros must create our ain values, we must go supermen who reject conventional, religious values ["slave morality"] and exert our will to ability ["master morality"] Nietzsche investigates subjective phenomena like emotions, will and consciousness. [The most accessible introduction to existentialism that I know of is William Barrett's Irrational Homo.]

Sartre'southward Life and Work – Much of Sartre's work originates from and is influenced past his experiences as a Frenchman in Nazi occupied France. His focus on choice was surely influenced by the selection that the French faced: collaboration, resistance, or quiet self-preservation. He later became a Marxist, although he thought Marxist philosophy would benefit past emphasizing liberty. He joined the Communist Party in the early on 1950s, although he left it later the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. He was politically active afterward in life, supporting exploited workers, nascent political revolutions and condemning American aggression in Vietnam. In the offset stage of his thinking, he focuses on private freedom, and in the 2nd, he explores the social and economic limits on human being freedom. [It is if his early boulder conventionalities in freedom was shaken by the reality of the social and economical world.]

Metaphysics: Consciousness and Objects, Disbelief – Sartre distinguishes man consciousness and inanimate not-consciousness. This is non a distinction between ii dissimilar substances, it is non a mind/trunk dualism, just between "2 modes of beingness." One is the way conscious beings exist—existence for itself—the other the mode non-conscious things exist—being in itself. Consciousness is always well-nigh something, including sometimes itself, whereas inanimate things are not conscious. [He's trying to get at what it is to be, to be conscious, to be human.] The other chief foundation of Sartre'south idea is his thoroughgoing atheism. He assumed that in that location are no transcendent values, and no intrinsic meaning or purpose for our lives. Life is absurd, we are forlorn. We have to grow upward and cull our own values and projects. The meaning of life isn't something discovered, but something we create. We must give our lives meaning.

Theory of Homo Nature: Existence and Essence, Negation and Freedom – Sartre doesn't believe in a man nature or essence that precedes individuals. Rather our existence precedes our essence; we have to create our ain essence. Zero, not god or evolution, created the states for any purpose other than the purposes we cull. Of grade Sartre recognizes that we are biological beings, but in that location are no general truths about what we should or ought to exist. The most bones matter nosotros tin can say virtually humans is that they are radically free,to be anything except to not be free. [They tin choose anything except cull not to choose.] In his words, we are "condemned to exist free." Consciousness is also aware that it is not the objects it ponders, that many things are not the case, and that we lack many things. The concept of pettiness or negation relates to liberty for Sartre. For the power to conceive of what'southward not the case—I could accept washed that—implies the freedom to imagine and cull other possibilities. In big office consciousness is this conceiving or desiring things to exist different—not to be as they are. Negation implies freedom of mind and of action."

Sartre rejects Freud's psychic determinism besides as the idea of the unconscious. Sartre believes we choose our mental states similar emotions. This may be truthful sometimes simply other emotions, like concern and care, seem to be very much a part of our nature. He too idea that grapheme traits are choices. I am not shy, I cull to be shy. While this may be partly truthful nosotros now know enough about biological science to know that it's not the whole truth. Still, Sartre thinks that our radical freedom is axiomatic when we make resolutions. I say I won't swallow cookies starting Mon, merely when Monday rolls effectually and I'm confronted with cookies—I face up my freedom because my past resolution doesn't constrain me. Confronting choices leads to angst or ache. We don't know what we volition do or what to do. We can jump off a span, and nosotros could throw our child off a bridge also. When we confront our freedom it brings anxiety.

Diagnosis: Ache and Bad Faith, Conflict with Others – Liberty brings anxiety which we effort to avoid by denying our liberty. But we cannot escape freedom, we must choose, nosotros are condemned to be free. [Retrieve about the feet of choice. What job should I do? Who should I marry? Where should I live? What should I believe?] A style out of choice is to imagine nosotros must believe this or practice that, to act in bad faith in Sartre's linguistic communication. This is a kind of self-deception where we imagine that our thoughts and actions are determined when they are up to us. [You could be an ax murderer or join the Peace Corps. You could be an atheist or a bring together a religious order. You could do or think any you want.] In Sartre's famous examples a woman acts in bad faith when she doesn't recognize her freedom to resist a human being's advances; and the waiter acts in bad religion when he assumes, if he does, that he must act like a waiter. The woman is not an object to be seduced and the man is non essentially a waiter. Actions and beliefs are sustained by our choices.

Sartre rejects that bad faith could be explained by Freudian repression. Is there a censor in the mind that represses? If so it must make up one's mind what to repress and what not to, so it must be enlightened of what'due south repressed so as not to be aware of it. Bad faith then describes a whole person, not some part of their listen. But to say one is sincere or has proficient faith is also problematic because once again, we are not essentially annihilation. If I act gay, shy or arrogant there is nevertheless a stardom being made between the self doing the describing and the cocky that is described. But we cannot be described considering we are not artifacts. So I am not essentially shy, gay, or arrogant. To say so is to act in bad faith. [Sartre says yous cull to be gay, shy or arrogant.] While this is all perplexing, the key and best idea in Sartre is that we can always be different from nosotros are, which is probably a adept affair to believe.

Sartre does think we tin justifiably infer that other people accept minds. [Some thinkers fence that nosotros can't know this.] When others expect at united states of america we know we are existence observed, hence we feel emotions like shame, embarrassment or pride. Sartre also argues that relationships between conscious people are necessarily ones of conflict. Other people look at united states and objectify united states, thereby threatening our liberty. In response, we might try to control others past treating them every bit objects. So Sartre believes that Hegel was correct; all human relationships are master/slave relationships that depend on differences in power. Sartre believed that principal/slave relationships were expressed in sexual desires, and he also thought that we couldn't really respect the freedom of other people. This is Sartre at his bleakest. [When yous read Sartre you frequently experience that he just had a fight with his longtime lover, companion, and intellectual giant, Simone de Beauvoir.]

Prescription: Reflective Option – Sartre rejected objective values—values are wholly subjective. So there is no specific way of life or course of action he can recommend. What he can do is condemn bad religion and praise making choices with an awareness that nothing determines them. This means accepting responsibleness for our actions, beliefs and everything else about ourselves while rejecting the thought that at that place are objective values to which we must adhere. [Sartre, following Marx, ascribes the latter to the ruling classes for whom the status quo works.]

Sartre illustrates how objective values [or ethical theories] don't assistance us in situations where nosotros must freely choose. In a famous story, he asks: should a man go off to fight the Nazis or stay home and intendance for his mother? No moral theory, intuition, or emotion tells you what to practise. Y'all must just exercise your liberty and choose. [To say that some moral principle forces you to do ane affair or another is to act in bad faith, it denies your freedom.] Sartre is partly correct that no moral theory answers every moral question, simply that seems different from saying you should do whatever you want.

What Sartre says we should practise is act authentically. We should human action recognizing that we are costless to act in many different ways, and we are responsible for our deportment. Today Sartre'due south exclamation flies in the face of inquiry about how much of our mental processes are unknown to us consciously. [Not to mention the influence of genes and surroundings on our behavior.] But Sartre maintains that to have self-knowledge entails understanding the reasons, non the causes, of our actions and beliefs. He besides thinks that people must cull their own values and create their ain meaning in life. But is authentic choice all there is to it? If then it would seem Sartre has to commend dedicated Nazis, compulsive child tortures, or sadists similar Cheney, Yoo, Addington, Rumsfeld and other members of the George W. Bush-league administration who approved torture. Also, Sartre would have to condemn someone who does plain skillful things because they believe in objective values. But does that make those things wrong? So an ideals which boils downwardly to "just choose" is incomplete.

Actuality and Liberty for Everyone – As Sartre'southward thought developed he did come to meet how freedom was situated inside the contexts of facts nearly human beings—their facticity. Our freedom is limited past our bodies and our identify in history and lodge [none of us will ever be built-in to Sam Walton and inherit about 20 billion dollars!] Some have the chance to go to Harvard or Oxford and go physicians or scholars, merely near do non. So Sartre backtracked a bit from his claims near our radical liberty equally his thought matured. He also advocated for social change. He believed that we might modify the world by becoming more godlike, by seeing ourselves as the only source of conservancy and meaning in this world.

Sartre also came to believe that relationships with others could be authentic. If others run across you as free, they requite some pregnant to your life through that recognition. He even argues at that place can be authentic honey. [Peradventure he was experiencing the wisdom and maturity that comes with historic period.] Still his most basic value was liberty, just non only the freedom that conscious beings have when they cull, "but the value judgment that every person ought to be able to exercise his or her freedom in concrete ways, and thus that human society should exist changed in the direction of making this a reality for everyone." To be authentic is to recognize the freedom of all people. And this obtains in a socialist, classless society where "all human beings will be able to limited their freedom. Thus Sartre encourages us to use our freedom to modify both ourselves and the earth.