Existentialism: Freedom and Despair, Freedom and Choice

 

Existentialism : A (mostly) twentieth-century approach that emphasizes the primacy of individual existence over any presumed natural essence for human beings. Although they differ on many details, existentialists generally suppose that the fact of my existence as a human being entails both my unqualified freedom to make of myself whatever I will and the awesome responsibility of employing that freedom appropriately, without being driven by anxiety toward escaping into the in-authenticity or self-deception of any conventional set of rules for behavior, even though the entire project may turn out to be absurd. Prominent existentialists include Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Jaspers, Beauvoir, Sartre, and Camus. (http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e9.htm#exism)

 

Main Ideas:

 “Existence precedes essence.” The logical outgrowth of the Cartesian cogito and Locke's tabula rasa:

 

Descartes: “Cogito Ergo Sum: I think, therefore I am.”   vs. “I am, therefore I think.”  Radical skepticism/complete, unflinching honesty, authenticity vs. dogma/tradition/ritual. (Darwin: human evolution and definition govd. by random chance and laws of nature; no grand design; no inherent meaning):

 

Human consciousness is the entirety of human meaning; man makes meaning; absolute meaninglessness of all actions (in the big picture); complete/total freedom; total responsibility (no hand of god); importance of choice.

Christian Existentialism

 

Existential fact leads to the following conclusions, predicaments etc.:

1) The Absurd: the ultimate meaninglessness of all human action;  in the grand scheme all human endeavor is rendered insignificant by the brutal facts of existence: time and death. (analogy: the plague)  This leads to two responses, Despair and Freedom:

           

2) Existential Angst/Despair: confronting the terrible pointlessness of our existence.

           

3) Complete Freedom: devoid of meaning, man is utterly and entirely free to create himself and his world (think of Kurtz). This leads to two responses, Responsibility and Anxiety:

           

4) Responsibility: devoid of controlling meaning (universal moral laws; a greater meaning; evolving human ‘progress’) man is utterly, entirely, completely responsible for his own fate, for history etc. "It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men." -- Camus

           

5) Anxiety: the natural response to this dizzying responsibility

           

6) Choice (note relationship to freedom, responsibility)

                        a) we create our lives thru our choices

                        b) we are faced with choosing between competing equally good (morally good, valid) choices and no dogma can help us (see "Existentialism is a Humanism" Sartre)

                        c) we are faced with choosing between competing equally bad choices (both lead to doom; The Plague, surviving the Holocaust) and no dogma can help us.

 

7) Confronting Suicide as the true Existential test: in the face of meaninglessness, why not kill one's self? If life is truly meaningless, why live it?

a) Sartre: because even if there is no larger, objective metaphysical meaning to existence, man is still free to create meaning
                       

b) Camus: because the only way of "beating" the absurd is to embrace it and to, through human will, "rise above it", if only within the context of one's own life; suicide equates with admitting defeat, and because our lives are only the sum total of our thoughts, choices and actions, to kill one's self is to produce a life that is defined by cowardice and defeat. A passion for a meaningless life is the truest form of passion for the truest life: it is an appreciation of being itself, not an appreciation of the goal: the goal of life becomes living fully, maintaining one's integrity, passion and willingness (in the true sense of the word) toward all that is good.

 

"You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing." -- Camus, Myth of Sisyphus

 

Note, again, Jaspers, above: all of this involves an irrational leap. One confronts and defeats the absurdity of life by embracing it. In many ways, this philosophy combines both the cold rationality of the Enlightenment and the creative, irrational impulses of the Romantics.

Choice and Moral Dilemmas

 

Moral Dilemma: Existential choice comes into play when we are forced to make a choice and:
a) We know we are still doomed, regardless of the choice (ex: Auschwitz; Camus' Myth of Sysyphus, The Plague and Sisyphus)
 
b) It is between two evils; a choice between "two wrongs".
 
c) It is between two, competing "goods"; a choice between "two rights".

Exist philosophers and authors use moral dilemmas to emphasize the nature of human existence:

First, that we are free to make choices.

Second, that we are forced or even doomed to make choices; no one can choose but ourselves.

Third, that the inherent absurdity of life dictates that all our freedom, and all our choices, will not change a thing in the cosmologically larger scheme of things: even when we choose what is "right", we cannot change the absurd nature of existence: that death is the outcome and time will wipe out all progress, memory, achievement etc.

Thus, moral dilemmas exemplify how we are "damned if we do, damned if we don't" choose, but we must still choose.  This is the absurd nature of human existence.

Examples: Sartre's friend in "Exist is a Humanism": stay and take care of mother/family or flee and join resistance to fight Nazis; religious dogma offers no answers.  Sophie in Sophie's Choice.