As an atheist, Jean-Paul Sartre believed that we live in a godless universe where there are no absolute, objective guides to action, morality, belief, or understanding. For Sartre, we are all free â€" radically free such that we experience the psychological strain of feeling “abandoned†and forced to take full responsibility for everything that happens, even though we may not really wish to.
The experience of “abandonment†derives from the unpleasant realization that there is no God to guide us â€" this causes within us the belief that without any absolute guide for morality or action, there can be no guide, no values, and no morality whatsoever. How can we possibly choose to do “good†when, prior to any choices we make, there are no absolute standards separating good from evil? In a sense, everything is permitted because there is no God to stop us from doing whatever we want, while at the same time there are no guides to instruct us about what we should want.
Without values, morals, or standards predefined in the universe or human nature, there is also no determinism when it comes to how we shall behave. We can choose whatever course of action that we want â€" we are free, but we are also condemned to be free because there is no way around taking absolute responsibility for what choices we finally do make. We cannot say that we picked one course of action over another because it is what God wanted, because it was in our nature to do so, and so forth. No, we can only say that it is because of what we wanted. Whether for better or for worse, the responsibility is ours and ours alone.
Abandoned but free, human beings must find their own course through the world and make their own choices about what they will value, what the differences are between good and evil, and what sorts of intellectual or social standards they will expect from one another. This, in turn, can lead to despair and anguish â€" freedom so radical is difficult to accept, especially when so many people are brought up to believe that they aren’t free and that there are absolute values and standards for them to rely upon. It’s not unlike walking along the high-wire at a circus without a net, and it is no accident that Sartre referred to the “dizziness†of freedom.
Of course, this does not mean that it makes no difference what we do or that we cannot judge what others do. The lack of an eternal human nature or of absolute standards of behavior does not mean that there is no common human condition in which we all reside and which creates certain constraints upon what we can do. When we act, our choices may not be constrained by external standards but they are constrained by external situations â€" all choices are, after all, made in the context of some situation an in relation to other human beings who will be affected.
Because of this, those who are affected have every right to evaluate those choices and comment if they are based upon error, bad faith, self-deception, ill will, etc. We have to create values because there are no values prior to our existence and because the meaning of our lives cannot exist prior to our having lived. This does not entail, however, that our lives and values can be entirely capricious and independent of their effects on others. Whatever we choose to do, others will be affected and they are free to react negatively â€" constraining us if need be.
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