Exist and then choose

Why are we here in this world? Do we have a mission to fulfil or are we to exist without any goal or purpose? All the religions and philosophies have answered such questions in different ways. Buddhists believe in Karmic forces and Christians say that God has given every man a role to play. In other words, we are governed by God’s immanent will. Similarly, philosophers down the ages have tried to answer these questions in their own ways.

The great Greek philosopher Aristotle in his Ethics says that man is created to fulfil some purpose or goal and that fulfilment of a life consists of striving towards that goal. By contrast, eminent French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) argues that there is no God or designer to give us a purpose. It is up to the individual to choose the life he thinks best.

According to Sartre, even a belief in God is a personal choice. He says that the belief in God can never be forced upon a person. Only the individual, not God, can make that choice. Man is never under any compulsion to do anything except by choice. What is strange is that he is faced with a choice at every turn in his life. We have a choice to marry someone we love or to do a job we enjoy doing.

Even if a man is imprisoned or a gun is held to his head, argues Sartre, it is his choice whether to comply with or defy. When Socrates was condemned to death, his pupils offered to bribe the jailers and get him freed. But he decided to accept the capital punishment and drank the poison he was offered.

Existence

Being an existentialist to the core, Sartre said that existence precedes essence. Man first exists without purpose or definition, finds himself in the world and only then as a reaction to experience defines the meaning of his life. Sartre’s magnum opus - Being and Nothingness - owes a great deal to many who had gone before him, mainly, Kierkegaard and Heidegger.

However, Sartre’s philosophy possesses a clarity and force that captured the spirit of his times in a far more powerful way than that of his predecessors or his existentialist contemporaries such as Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir.

While dismissing the view that there is an all-powerful God to oversee man’s activities, Sartre believed that we are responsible for everything we do. Nobody can make excuses or avoid responsibility holding a divine being or nature answerable for his actions. To do so would constitute a self-deception or “bad faith.” What is more, everything we do affects not only ourselves but the rest of mankind. Such a responsibility is a consequence of the fact that we define our own meaning of life which is reflected in our actions.

Despair

Sartre finds it “extremely embarrassing” that God does not exist. As a result, we are left alone without help or guidance in moral matters. Sometimes this leads to despair. Therefore, we must act without hope, foregoing the instinct to trust that things will turn out for the best.

Sartre finds that life is made up of difficult choices and traditional philosophies fail to address these issues. His primary focus was on finding a way to exist authentically in a world without God. He experienced evil in all its forms when the Germans occupied France. Then he realised that evil is not a mere abstraction, it is real and concrete. He said man’s civilisation is a thin veneer and that at any moment “the beast” can break loose and reveal “the absurd.” But most of us try to hide this aspect of reality through rationalisations and philosophical and religious beliefs.

By denying the existence of evil within ourselves, we prevent ourselves from recognising the evil for what it is. Sartre rejected Kierkegaard’s leap of faith as a cowardly way of living. He advocated living without illusion in a world of absolute freedom. We are what we do, not what we think, believe or feel.

Nazi occupation

After his harrowing experience of Nazi occupation of France, Sartre began to wonder whether there was any hope for man to live in an ordered universe governed by a wise, powerful and loving God. Even science provided no certainty because the Nazi concentration camps were “scientific” and “rationally ordered.” He found that even nature was another bourgeois delusion designed to cover up the hideous absurdity of existence.

Much of Being and Nothingness was written in Left Bank cafés of Paris in an atmosphere filled with sounds and voices and the clinking of silverware and dishes. While writing his magnums opus, Sartre smelt the aroma of coffee, cigarettes, food and wine. He was probably not disturbed by customers entering, leaving and circulating among their acquaintances. Because of this, Sartre was dubbed “Café philosopher” suggesting that his writing was not serious. However, the cafés were meeting places of artists, intellectuals, left radicals and poets.

When France was liberated from the Nazis and the Word War II came to an end in 1945, Sartre became a celebrity. People regarded him as one of the intellectuals who championed the cause of human freedom. Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism flourished in France for a long time. However, existentialism was roundly condemned by the Catholic Church and the Communist Party of France.

Sartre’s critics ask, “What shall I choose? What values guide me in my actions? What principles, ideals, norms or standards do I choose? Sartre’ s answer is clear: You’re free, choose... No general ethic can show you what is to be done.”