Sartre: Existentialism As Choice and Action
"Actions express priorities." Mahatma Gandhi
"Quietism is the attitude of people who say, “let others do what I cannot do.” The doctrine I am presenting before you is precisely the opposite of this, since it declares that there is no reality except in action. It goes further, indeed, and adds, “Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.” Hence we can well understand why some people are horrified by our teaching." Sartre Existentialism is a Humanism
"All I'm really trying to say is that when I read discussions like this [fidelity in a marriage] I'm struck by how much they're influenced by our culture and place. In my experience morality is relative, not absolute, but the consequences of moral choices can be absolute, as in the case of my friends and family who have been betrayed by promiscuous spouses who have brought HIV to their beds." Anonymous Friend, 2011
Ultimately, the application of Existential philosophy boils down to how you choose to live your life, and the fact that we are all forced, condemned to choose how to live our lives. As the really lame-ass 80s rawk band Rush put it: even "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
No matter what else is or is not true: we know that we are alive right now and that life is asking us to choose how we will or will not live tomorrow. Even if you believe in an afterlife, you still know that we all exist now, here on earth, and each moment we are thus free and also forced, condemned to decide, to choose, what we will do the next moment or moments. These moments are the sum of our existence in this life.
Sometimes these choices are immense -- Should I go to war? Should I marry? Should I have sex with so and so? Should I kill myself? Should I move to Boise or stay in Moscow? Should I drink/smoke/inject/snort this? -- and sometimes the choices seem small -- Should I go to class today? Should I buckle my seat belt? Should I take notes in class? Should I answer that phone call? Should I walk over and talk to that attractive person or should I see if he/she walks over and talks to me? -- but in hindsight, these small choices will lead us to the path that is our life. In other words: choice is destiny.
If you believe in an afterlife, you still cannot deny that the choices you make in this life matter; perhaps you believe they will, in fact, determine your eternity.
If you don't believe in an afterlife, then you should realize, the Existentialists say, that these moments also really, really matter, because they are the totality of you (and, perhaps more importantly, those around you, who will then affect those around them, not only now but in the future, long after you have died...and so on). Thus, if this is all there is, how can you say it is nothing?
Think of this as a mathematical formula:
I believe in an eternal afterlife. Thus, this life in this world equals: "1/Afterlife" or "This life is a tiny fraction of an infinite eternity."
I do not believe in an afterlife. Thus, this life in this world equals: "1/1" or "This life is everything; this life is 100%."
In the first case you probably believe that your choices in this life matter because they determine the fate of your eternal soul; in the second case, Sartre argues, you might consider that your choices in this life matter because this life is all meaning that will ever exist and, thus, your choices and actions constitute the full entirety of your being.
Perhaps there is no other life on other planets, and perhaps this microscopic blip in cosmic time where humans exist and love and build art and create science...perhaps this is the only spec in the universe where such a moment will ever exist. Ever. To grasp this is to grasp the what the Existentialists call absurdity of our existence -- the fact that, rationally, living, life itself, makes no rational "sense" or it may serve no larger purpose -- and simultaneously the full responsibility for existence we each carry with us.
Thus, the atheist or agnostic Existentialist argues that the meaning I create in this life, though fleeting, is in fact 100% of all meaning that will ever exist for me. What love I create is all the love there ever will be, for me and perhaps for those you love -- thus I can choose whether or not to will love into existence. If I act evilly, I will evilness into being. If I act kindly, I will kindness into being. Or not.
Will such evilness or kindness ultimately "matter" 1,000 or 1,000,000 years from now? Maybe, maybe not. But I know for certain, at least, that it matters now and will matter to those who I act kindly or evilly toward. And if there is nothing else, that at least is something.
Thus, Sartre argues: We all must take complete responsibility for existence, because every time I act on my choices, I will something from nothing.
This is the mistake both Victor and the Creature have both made: in creating the creature, Victor had a responsibility to nurture him, and he also had a responsibility to think about the consequences of creating a life before he did so; similarly, the Creature has blamed Victor and society at large for his, the Creature's, monstrous ways, when really the Creature needed to take responsibility for his own response to his abuse.