Sartre’s Existentialism: Decisionism, Freedom, and Moral Choice

The world is in a truly miserable state, yet even in Transylvania during Halloween season, there were no vampires, only unseasonably warm and sunny weather. This unexpected pleasantness might be a good omen. This discussion will focus on French existentialism, particularly the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre.

To introduce Sartre's existentialism, consider the children's book "But Not The Hippopotamus" by Sandra Boynton. In this story, various animals engage in activities, but the hippopotamus initially refrains. When the other animals invite her to join, she hesitates, unsure whether to stay or go. Ultimately, she decides to join. The crucial takeaway from this story, which will be revisited, is that the hippopotamus must decide for herself. This concept of "decisionism" is central to Sartre's philosophy.

Philosophical Context Leading to Sartre

Phenomenology and Intentionality

Phenomenology sought to transcend subjective consciousness while affirming its primary role as the locus of meaning and truth. Intentionality, described as a "string with a magnet attached," became the means of transcendence, allowing consciousness to move beyond its boundaries to the object. This bridge, Husserl believed, allowed us to get beyond and outside ourselves without abandoning ourselves. Lenin, in contrast, attempted to make consciousness a transcendent object to be brought from outside to inside and given to the workers. Traditionally, epistemology aimed to bridge the gap from subject to object.

Heidegger's Radical Turn

Heidegger radically reformulated this question, making the distance between subject and object cease to be an issue. While Husserl emphasized the inseparable relationship between subject and object, Heidegger argued that there is no subject that can be disarticulated from the world. Dasein (being-there) is "always already in the world" (Immer schon). There is no outside; we are always already "thrown inside," involved, engaged, and caring about things. Consequently, Heidegger no longer needed intentionality, just as Husserl believed he no longer needed Kant's distinction between the Ding an sich (thing-in-itself) and the phenomenon.

Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" provides a dense but insightful introduction to phenomenology. His public lecture, "Existentialism and Humanism," offers a more accessible summary of his ideas.

Historical Context: The 20th Century's Impact on Existentialism

From Deism to the Death of God

Historically, the French Revolution (1789) saw the rise of deism, where God was present but not actively intervening in human affairs—a "emasculation of God." This era also marked the end of the divine right of kings and the transformation of subjects into citizens with natural and political rights. The tension between Enlightenment reason and Romantic passion/will is evident in Sartre, who incorporates both God's diminished role and the Romantic emphasis on sincerity, authenticity, action, and will.

The mid-19th century brought liberalism blending with nationalism (1848), and the publication of the Communist Manifesto. Hegelian teleology suggested progressive, inevitable time. By the 1880s, Nietzsche declared the "death of God."

World War I and its Aftermath

World War I (1914) shattered the European order. Four empires crumbled, and the Bolshevik Revolution occurred. This war introduced unprecedented violence against civilians, a "total war" that redrew the map of Europe. The national principle triumphed, leading to the creation of new liberal democracies, many of which were unstable.

The inter-war years (1918-1939) were characterized by radical political polarization. The center did not hold; the left and right became increasingly extreme. Lenin died in 1924, Stalin consolidated power by 1928-1929, and Hitler and the Nazis rose in Germany in 1933. This new "post-liberal" politics involved mass movements, charismatic leaders, and an aspiration to control all aspects of life, moving beyond elite discussions to encompass society entirely.

The Context for Sartre's Obsession with Choice

This radical polarization and the disappearance of the moderate center created a context where stakes were high, alternatives dramatic, and no one could stand aside. Nazism (1933-1945) and Stalinism (1928-1953/1956) profoundly influenced intellectual thought. The experience of these totalitarian regimes, with their unimaginable scale of terror and death (millions killed in concentration camps, gulags, and famines), led to the "terrifying implications of the death of God" and the collapse of civilization. This backdrop underscores the necessity and moral imperative of choice in Sartre's philosophy.

Jean-Paul Sartre: Life and Influences

Sartre was a prolific writer across various genres (playwright, novelist, philosopher, memoirist). He and Simone de Beauvoir viewed writing as a moral calling, leading to a vast but sometimes uneven body of work. He famously refused the Nobel Prize, deeming it bourgeois. Tony Judt described him as the quintessential intellectual who "loves to hate itself."

Sartre's lifelong relationship with Simone de Beauvoir began in 1929 when they were studying for the highly competitive Agrégation in philosophy. They both excelled, and their intellectual partnership profoundly shaped their work. They frequented Café de Flore in Paris, engaged in an open relationship, and were deeply involved in the intellectual and social life of their time. Their dialogue with each other formed the basis of their adult thinking and writing.

Sartre, born in 1905, studied philosophy in Paris and Germany, becoming captivated by phenomenology but also developing critiques. In "Transcendence of the Ego" (1937), he argued against phenomenological reduction from a Heideggerian perspective, stating that we are "always already in the world," making a suspension of belief in the world impossible.

World War II and the Resistance

The lead-up to World War II, including Hitler's demands for the Sudetenland (1938 Munich Agreement, seen as appeasement by the British and betrayal by the Czechs), his occupation of Czech lands (1939), and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939) dividing Poland, set the stage for the war. Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, marking the formal beginning of WWII. France fell quickly in the spring of 1940.

Sartre served as an army meteorologist (a curious parallel with Heidegger's WWI service) and was captured by the Nazis, becoming a prisoner of war from 1940-1941. During his captivity, he studied Heidegger's "Being and Time," which heavily influenced his own "Being and Nothingness," completed in 1943 while he was actively involved in the French Resistance.

He was deeply affected by the Bolshevik Revolution, WWII, the collaborationist Vichy government, the French Resistance, and the Holocaust. Later, he would be influenced by the Algerian War of Independence. Sartre was profoundly concerned with oppression and exploitation.

After the war, he co-founded the journal "Les Temps Modernes" with Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In its first issue (October 1945), Sartre advocated for "littérature engagée" (engaged literature), arguing that thinkers and writers should be involved in the world, taking positions rather than retreating into academic ivory towers. Simone de Beauvoir's novel "The Mandarins" explores the moral dilemmas of this post-war period.

Sartre's Existentialism: Key Concepts

Sartre's existentialism, primarily formulated in the mid-1940s, takes a radically subjectivist approach to Heidegger's Dasein.

"Existence Precedes Essence"

In "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1946), Sartre defends existentialism against charges of pessimism, taking Nietzsche's "death of God" seriously. He argues that if God is dead, then life is meaningless, and we are responsible for creating our own values.

Sartre follows Heidegger in distinguishing "to be" from "to exist." Only Dasein (human beings) has the possibility of existence in the sense of creating itself and making choices. Animals "are" but do not "exist" in this self-creating sense. Humans are self-reflective and self-creating beings, the source of all meaning.

Drawing from Nietzsche's "death of God" and Dostoevsky's "if God is dead, everything is permitted," Sartre asserts that we are the creators of values. We cannot mourn God's loss but must embrace the consequences of His absence. We are "thrown into the world and abandoned" by God, leading to a sense of homelessness and alienation—the "trauma of modernity."

Sartre writes: "When we speak of abandonment, a favorite word of Heidegger, we only mean to say that God does not exist and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end." He finds it "extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven."

The core tenet of Sartre's existentialism is "existence precedes essence." There is no pre-given human nature. We are first thrown into the world, and then we create ourselves through our choices and actions. We are pure possibility until we define ourselves.

Nothingness and Radical Freedom

Sartre, like Heidegger, uses "nothingness" as a central concept. For Heidegger, nothingness is tied to our inevitable mortality ("being towards death"). For Sartre, radical nothingness signifies radical freedom—the space for creation, ungrounded by any pre-existing essence. "Man is nothing but what he makes of himself." This implies a world of radical contingency and almost total freedom.

En-soi and Pour-soi

Sartre describes human beings as a combination of two modes of being: - En-soi (in-itself): This refers to what is already established, inert, and cannot be undone. It is the "facticity" of a situation—what has happened, who we have been until this moment. It's the given, unchangeable aspect of our existence. - Pour-soi (for-itself): This is the fluid, dynamic, internal negation of the en-soi. It represents possibility, transcendence, and the ability to go beyond who you have been and what has been, moving into the future. It doesn't undo the past but allows for new actions and self-creation.

As conscious individuals, we transcend the facticity of our situation. We are always more than our present circumstances because we embody the possibilities of the future, taking advantage of the "nothingness" that is not yet determined. The present is a border between the unchangeable past (en-soi) and the creative possibilities of the future (pour-soi). Our freedom stems from being both en-soi and pour-soi. Consciousness, as pour-soi, is an activity, a "wind blowing from nowhere," constantly choosing itself. "I am my own nothingness," Sartre states, seeing this not as depressing but as liberating, as nothingness is the space for self-determination.

The Moral Imperative of Choice and Bad Faith

We live in a constant dialectical tension between en-soi and pour-soi. Sartrean freedom acknowledges that we are always in a given situation, with limits (e.g., we can't fly). However, within these limits, possibilities always exist, and we must choose. Not choosing is itself a choice.

The moral imperative for Sartre is not what we choose, but that we choose. There is no pre-existing moral code to guide us. We are responsible for making our choices. "Man is nothing but what he makes of himself." We are only what we do, how we create ourselves through action.

Bad faith (mauvaise foi) is a crucial concept. It is not opportunistic deception but self-deception. It involves taking refuge behind deterministic doctrines to evade responsibility for our choices. It is a denial of one's freedom, treating oneself as an object rather than a subject. Examples include saying, "I couldn't have done otherwise," "it was fate," or blaming external factors. This is analogous to Heidegger's das Man (the "they-self").

A secondary form of bad faith is failing to recognize the facticity of a situation, making decisions based on unrealistic fantasies (e.g., a child believing they can fly like a bumblebee instead of riding in a car). Sartre critiques Freud's division of consciousness into conscious and unconscious, arguing that consciousness is translucent, allowing for the self-deception of bad faith.

Anguish, Despair, and Responsibility

The implications of existentialism are anguish, angst, and despair due to the "unbearable burden of our responsibility." Sartre's anguish differs from Heidegger's, being more connected to responsibility than finitude. When we commit to something, fully realizing we are choosing not only for ourselves but also acting as a "legislator for the whole of mankind," we cannot escape a profound sense of responsibility. This absolute freedom entails absolute responsibility.

The Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz critiqued Sartre, questioning what happens if one chooses frivolity over authenticity. From an existentialist perspective, the only punishment for such choices is a lack of "true existence."

Sartre's essay highlights situations where choices are illuminated, and there are no innocent choices. He gives the example of a young man during the war deciding whether to abandon his sick mother to join the resistance. Another poignant example is from a memoir by a Jewish child hiding in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII, where people in a cellar had to decide whether to suffocate a crying baby to prevent Nazis from discovering them all. These were contexts where impossible choices had to be made, with suffering as an inevitable outcome.

Sartre's emphasis on decisionism arose from the daily impossible choices faced during the Nazi occupation.

Sartre's Later Years and Legacy

Sartre later embraced Marxist determinism, and in the post-war years, he was criticized for being a "Stalinist apologist," failing to condemn the Stalinist show trials in Eastern Europe. Tony Judt called this "The Great Absence," a silence about the crimes of Stalinism, which Judt saw as a tragedy for a generation. Judt's harsh critique stemmed from Sartre's immense influence; he was perceived as the conscience of France and Europe for decades. Upon his death in 1980, a Parisian newspaper headline declared, "France has lost its conscience." Sartre, who obsessed over the consequences of the death of God, died in a role akin to a secular deity for post-war Europe.