Jean-Paul Sartre
Atheistic existentialism, which I represent, states that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man . . .
If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing . . .
Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself . . . man is responsible for what he is.
. . .when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. . . I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating an image of man of my own choosing. . .
The man who involves himself and realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a lawmaker who is, at the same time, choosing all mankind as well as himself, cannot escape the feeling of his total and deep responsibility. . .
For every man, everything happens as if all mankind had its eyes fixed on him and were guiding itself by what he does. . .
When a military leader takes upon himself the responsibility for an attack and sends a number of men to their death, he chooses to do it and at bottom he alone chooses. No doubt under a higher command, but its orders, which are more general, require interpretation by him and upon that interpretation depends the life of ten, fourteen or twenty men. In making the decision, he cannot but feel a certain anguish. All leaders know that anguish. It does not prevent their acting, on the contrary it is the very condition of their action, for the action presupposes that there is a plurality of possibilities, and in choosing one of these, they realize that it has value only because it is chosen. Now it is anguish of that kind which existentialism describes, and moreover, as we shall see, makes explicit through direct responsibility towards other men who are concerned. It is not a curtain separating us from action, but is part of action itself.
When we speak of “forlornness” – a term Heidegger was fond of – we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all of the consequences of this. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain kind of secular ethics which would like to abolish God at the least possible expense . . .
The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. . . Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. . .
There is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom. . .
Jean-Paul Sartre
Excerpted from “Existentialism is a Humanism”
The 106th birth anniversary of Jean-Paul Sartre is being celebrated on June 21
