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J. P. SARTRE ON FREEDOM AND
RESPONSIBILITY

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), an eminent French existentialist and man of letters, ranks as the most versatile writer and as the dominant influence on the intellectual life of the twentieth century. Apart from his philosophical magnum opus Being and Nothingness, Sartre has authored a number of literary works like Nausea, The Wall, No Exist, The Flies, The Roads to Freedom, The Words, etc. He also edited Les Temps Modernes, a review devoted to the discussion of political and literary questions from an existential point of view. He rejected the Noble Prize for literature awarded to him in 1964.

Human freedom is the central theme of all Sartre’s writings, philosophical as well as literary. He treats man as being who is inalienably and absolutely free. He equates man with freedom and pictures him as an autonomous and incontestable author of himself and the world around him. Sartre’s work Existentialism and Humanism, an essay on his brand of atheistic existentialism, provides a clear and detailed account of human freedom coupled with
responsibility.

Man, according to Sartre, is not created by God, since God does not exist. Man is not produced like an object, the existence of which is predetermined by its producer. For instance, the pro­duction of a knife is the totality of the design and qualities which its producer wants to give it. That is, the existence of an object is preceded by essence as conceived by its producer. The idea in the mind of the “architect� is the foundation of the existence of an object. But it is wrong to think that man is created in conformity to a plan. Man is not an object to be first designed and then produced in accordance with it. There is no universal formula which can determine the birth and life of man. Sartre says that it is bad-faith to entertain the idea: “God makes man according to a procedure and a conception, exactly as the artisan manufactures a paper-knife, following a definition and a formula�.

Sartre is of the view that man is free in the sense that he possesses altogether different qualities from those of a thing. Unlike a thing man is a being of choice. Man is a being of consciousness, which is in constant negation of the present. By nature, man is without essence. For man, to be is to be is to “have beenâ€�; he exists as a perpetual nihilation of his own being; he never “isâ€�; he ever “is notâ€�; his being is “not yetâ€� ; he is always beyond all denominations given to him. That is, man is already something other than what can be said about him Unlike (the being of) a thing which is “beingâ€�, man is (a being of) “nonbeingâ€�. The (being of a) thing “isâ€�; whereas (the being of) man is not what (it) he is and is what (it) he is not. That is, (the being of) man is outside himself; (it) he is in projecting him­self into the future; (it) he is an elsewherenessto himself. That is, man is a being of “subjectivityâ€� which is beyond all determina­tions, materialistic or divine. Sartre says, “Man is, indeed, a project which possesses a subjective life, instead of being a kind of moss, or a fungus or a cauliflowerâ€�.²

Man is a being who does not have a permanent nature; he is not born with a certain nature. On the contrary, man is what he chooses himself to be; man is not born readymade; it is only later on that he becomes “thisâ€� or “thatâ€�. Man is what he makes him­self to be; he becomes what he “wantsâ€�, (not, however, what he may wish to be); man defines himself by his own deeds; he shapes his future which is not preordained but virgin and pure; man’s future is not laid down by God in advance; but it is man who fashions his future. That is, man is free to have a future he chooses. Sartre says, “If man, as the existentialist sees him, is not definable, it is because, to begin with, he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of itâ€�. ³

Man is not a set of conditioned ractions as all kinds of mate­rialism or idealism treats him to be. Man is not endowed with set patterns of behaviour. Instead, man is a being of absolute freedom. Indeed, Sartre equates man with freedom. Man = freedom. Man and freedom are one and the same. He says that it is impo­ssible to distinguish man from freedom. Man does not exist first in order to be free subsequently. That is, freedom is not a quality added on to man; it is not his accidental character; there is no difference between man and “being-freeâ€�. Freedom constitutes the very being of man. Satre says, “There is no determinism â€� man is free, man is freedomâ€�.⁴

Sartre holds that, in man, existence precedes essence. That is, man is not determined by his essence. On the Contrary, it is he who creates and conditions it. He is free to choose his essence. For instance, no man is born a coward; a coward is a coward not because of his stunted physical organism or abnormal psychological temperament or unfavourable environment but because he chooses himself to be so consciously or “unconsciouslyâ€�, (For Sartre, the so-called unconscious does not exist.) It is his choice that determines him to be a coward. In reality, a coward makes himself a coward and a hero; it is one’s own choice that determines who he is or will be. Man simply finds excuses for his irresponsible and inauthentic behaviour in believing in the power and determination of some non­human factors like environment, heredity, etc. Man merely avoids exercising his power of choice by saying, “You see, that is what we are like, no one can do anything about itâ€�. ⁵

Thus Sartre condemns man to freedom which is coupled with responsibility. He holds that man is what he does; man defines himself by his own actions for which he is responsible through and through. Man is the sum of his actions which are freely chosen by himself. That is, there is no cowardice apart from cowardly actions of a coward; there is no love apart from the deeds of love; there is no genius which is not expressed in the works of art. Man, whatever he may be, is nothing other than what he has made himself to be. Sartre says, “That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into the world he is responsible for everything he doesâ€�. ⁶

Sartre maintains that human responsibility in a world with­out God is overwhelming. Since everything comes into “beingâ€� through man, since there is no non-human situation in the world and since “things will be such as men have decided they shall beâ€�, man has to choose with tremendous responsibility. But the plight of man is such that he is alone in choosing with responsi­bility. That is, man is free and responsible without help and excuse. He is without help, for there is neither God nor any non-human guiding principles to help him in choosing with all responsibility; he is without excuse, for there is nobody or nothing upon which he can throw his responsibility and thereby lessen the burden of his absolute freedom. Sartre substantiates man’s burden of freedom and responsibility with an example of a pupil who was confronted with a dilemma of deciding between two equally “validâ€� and different modes of action: one of staying with his old mother for whom he was the only consolation and the other of joining the French Forces in order to fight for his nation and avenge his brother who was killed by the Germans. Sartre contends that the commandments like “act with charityâ€�, “love thy neighbourâ€�, “deny yourself for othersâ€�, “choose the way which is harderâ€�, etc., are ineffective to enable the pupil to prefer decisively anyone mode of action to the other, for he finds himself in the vicious circle of fulfilling one at the cost of the other. Nothing can infallibly prove one as being superior to the other; there is no sure guide which can help him out of the dilemma by pronouncing in clear terms that he owes his mother more love than he owes his country. ⁸

Sartre contends that even if an individual chooses and acts in accordance with a prescribed principle or a doctrine of behaviour, it is only because of his choice that it becomes a guide to his action. No ethical formula can be authentic unless man recognises it to be so. It is man’s choice that renders a particular rule as a guide to action. No rule is “goodâ€� or “badâ€� a priori. So also, no mode of action is “goodâ€� or “badâ€� by itself. Sartre says, “If I regard a certain course of action as good, it is only I who choose to say that it is good and not badâ€�.⁹ Even if an individual goes to an adviser for advice, again, it is he who chooses the kind of adviser he wants. He first chooses the advice he wants before he chooses an adviser. He goes to the adviser who gives him the advice he wants but never to an adviser who is likely to give an advice which he does not like. Sartre says, “But if you seek counsel from a priest, for example, you have selected that priest; and at bottom you already know, more or less, what he would advise. In other words, to choose an adviser is nevertheless to commit oneself by that choiceâ€�. ¹⁰

Further, the atheistic existentialism of Satre describes man as the creator of values. God being absent, man is condemned to invent values. Same says, “If I have excluded God the Father, there must be somebody to invent valuesâ€�.¹¹ Values are not divine and eternal; they are not sacred; no value is a value unless man claims it to be so; no value is independent of man; it is man who creates and ascribes the meaning to a certain value; it is man who gives it a significance through his voluntary choice. That is, man’s subjectivity is the foundation of all values. For instance, values like honesty, humanity and progress do not have any meaning without man; they do not have a significance of their own. There is no God or Infinite and Perfect consciousness to formulate values as having fixed and universal validity; there is no heaven where it is written that “this is goodâ€�, “one must be honestâ€�, “one must not lieâ€�, etc. Values do not fall from the blue but man brings them into being. Man’s existence precedes the values he invents. Accordingly, man’s life has precisely the significance given by man. It does not have an intrinsic and prevenient significance of its own, since it is not governed by any kind of superhuman universe or being. Instead, man’s life is a sheer accident and it is what he makes it to be. The meaning of life is what man brings to it through his freedom of choice and responsibility. Same says, “To say that we invent values means neither more nor less than this; that there is no sense in life a priori. Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you chooseâ€�. ¹²

To conclude, man’s freedom and responsibility are so inaliena­ble the it is impossible for man to be free from them. Man is free but he is not free not to be free. Not to chose is to choose not to choose. Man is responsible even for not being responsible. Man’s responsibility is not only great in the sense that it concerns mankind as a whole â€� man in choosing for himself chooses for all, in fashioning himself after an image fashions others also â€� but also unbearably heavy in the sense that can never be free from being responsible. Freedom and responsibility are so protean that they manifest even in the acts of not-choosing and not-being-responsible. By rejecting God, Same has endowed man with absolute freedom of choice and responsibility and enabled him to face the reality of life authentically. He has revealed to man the fact that man is the sale architect of his life. He has urged man to face the dread of the fact of his being free without escape. He has declared that man being condemned to be free and responsible, he is condemned at every moment to construct himself and the world without remorse. Thus the important import of Sartre’s existentialism is that “it puts every man in possession of himself as he is and places entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his shouldersâ€�. ¹³

REFERENCES

¹ J.P. Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism, trans. Philip Mairet,
Methuen, London, 1948, P. 27.
² Ibid., P. 28.
³ Ibid., P. 28
⁴ Ibid., P. 34.
⁵ Ibid., P. 42.
⁶ Ibid., P. 34.
⁷ Ibid., P. 40.
⁸ Ibid., PP. 35-36.
⁹ Ibid., P. 31.
¹⁰ Ibid., P. 37.
¹¹ Ibid., P. 54.
¹² Ibid., P. 54.
¹³ Ibid., P. 29.