Most of what I have to say is based on Jean-Paul Sartre's essay "Existentialism
is a Humanism." Existentialism is a little hard to explain, since
it seems to be based on several contradictory and, sometimes, wildly implausible
principles, so please bear with me.
At the roots of existentialism is phenomenology, an introspective study
of human life, that tries to describe our existence without committing
to any particular hypotheses, it just "tells it like it is."
According to Sartre, careful introspection reveals a major difference between
ourselves and the world. Things in the world "are what they are,"
while we are, in a sense, "nothing," that is, a kind of existence
that lacks the concrete properties that define tables, chairs, and waterfalls.
Our experience of the world is not one that reveals ourselves as things
looking at other things, but is merely looking at other things. Much of
philosophy and ethics is a search for the true nature of humanity (seeking
happiness, freedom of expression, being rational perhaps) and then concluding
that what we ought to do is to conform to our true nature. On Sartre's
view, we have no nature, no characteristics that define what it is to be
a real human being, we find ourselves in the situation of living and then
find it's up to each one of us individually to try to define human life
for ourselves. He says that what's peculiar about humans is that "existence
precedes essence," meaning that our life comes before the qualities
that define what we are. For most things, the order is reversed, their
essence precedes their existence. The shape, fruit, wood, roots, and leaves
of an apple tree are all determined by its genetic characteristics and
its environment. It's not free to be a peach tree or a horse if it wants
to. Denying modern theories of psychological and physiological determinism,
Sartre claims that we are always free to choose each and every characteristic
about ourselves. What if someone is born handicapped? I guess Sartre could
reply that it's a choice to view it as a handicap. What about those who
were abused as children? Psychologists say that one's personality is molded
by these experiences. Sartre would reply that one only allows them to be
an influence, but that, in the end, one is still free to choose. Well,
if you don't have a pre-determined nature then how do we gain an identity?
According to Sartre, this is through our project, which is roughly "what
we are really up to." Since, at any given moment we lack a nature,
the only way that we can gain an identity and become real is to reach to
some image we have of ourselves in the future. Sartre says strange, but
insightful, things like "man is a being hurling himself towards the
future" and "man is the future of man" (excuse the apparent
sexual bias, since this applies equally to both men and women). Your project
is like a list of things you want to do in life; but, of course, people
are often confused about what they're really "up to," so if asked
to put down a list, they might not actually be describing their real project.
The same goes for ethics. On Sartre's view, there are no a priori (before
the fact) ethical truths; that is, all of ethics is a matter of human invention.
It's true that 1+1=2, and it always has been so. This is an example of
an a priori truth. But not so, according to Sartre, for ethics. We invented
the value of telling the truth as a way of expressing the idea of what
it is to be a human, but it's not something that was true before that idea
was expressed. Thus, on Sartre's view, we are not only free to choose what
we are, we are also free to choose the code that we live by. Taking things
a step farther, Sartre doesnąt mean that when making these choices, you
are simply choosing for yourself. He claims that we are "choosing
for all of mankind." This seems silly, since if I choose to be a philosophy
major, I wouldn't want everyone else to do it, or the world would be flooded
with philosophers, which is not a pretty thought. To explain, Sartre claims
that choices aren't just made for oneself, but are instead made in relation
to that future image to which you are projecting, and that image is your
way of defining humanity, so it ought to apply to everyone. I guess that
by being a philosophy major I'm saying that it's good to think about philosophical
questions, and that people ought to do so, if they want to be what I conceive
of as being truly human. Similarly, when I choose an ethical principle,
I'm not choosing it just for me here and now, I'm choosing it in relation
to the image I have for humanity, and thus, there is an element of universality
in Sartre's theory that reminds one of Kant.
There is a dark side of existentialism. This freedom we have goes beyond
the nice "being able to do what you want to do" sort to a "monstrous
freedom" such that if you ever came to terms with it, you would sink
into deep dispair. Freedom entails responsibility and, according to this
theory, your freedom includes the freedom to choose who you are, the freedom
to choose the values you live by, and the freedom to interpret your experiences
as you may, to the extent that it would be overwhelming to confront and
accept the full responsibility entailed by it. The most common response
is what Sartre calls "bad faith," which is to deny the responsibility
by denying your freedom. Bad faith is a kind of self-deception. For example,
one might say, "By nature, I've got a bad temper and that's why I
beat up on my wife and kids." Or one might say, "I had to tell
the truth, I had no choice, it's a rule." Sartre would reply that
you aren't being honest, since you choose to let your inclinations influence
your temper and you choose to adopt the principle of telling the truth.
Another kind of bad faith is to deny the existentialist principle "being
is doing." Since we have no inward natures that determine who we are,
we can only define ourselves by projecting into the future, but the only
real evidence that we are headed in one direction or the other is by an
examination of how we act. No one is an artist by nature, on this view,
nor does merely dressing up like an artist (wearing berets, sleeping till
noon, talking funny) make one an artist. You are only an artist insofar
as you actually create works of art, according to existentialism. I remember
that in the movie Throw Momma from the Train, Billy Crystal kept telling
Danny DeVito "writers write," which is an application of the
"being is doing" principle. In my opinion, Sartre is dead right
on this one, which is the opposite of the 1980's "being is posing"
value, which means that it doesn't matter much what you do as long as you
have the right "image."
Existentialism and libertarianism both reflect the American value of
personal freedom (ad populum?). We've got lots of scientists and psychologists
who try to explain humanity in terms of the past and by reference to individual
genetic characteristics, and there is some validity to what they say. Still,
most of us assume that individuals are usually free to act as they choose,
and that adults must assume responsibility for the effects of their actions.
Existentialists portray human life in a way such that "human life
is possible," which is to say that their theory is compatible with
our ordinary conception of what it is to be a human being.
