WHEN John-Paul Sartre wrote his magnum opus Being and Nothingness it was criticized for being an ethical vacuum. The problem is that Existentialism starts from the existence of the individual and the claim that it creates itself and is entirely responsible for its actions. But in that case how do you move from the individual to concern for the Other? Existentialism is, above all, about the ontology of existence, and Sartre himself acknowledges the problem in Being and Nothingness when he writes: “Ontology itself cannot formulate ethical precepts. It is concerned solely with what is, and we cannot possibly derive imperatives from ontological indicatives. It does, however, allow us to catch a glimpse of what sort of ethics will assume its responsibilities when confronted with a human reality in situation.” Sartre, of course, will have been aware of David Hume’s profound claim in his 18th century classic An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding that you cannot simply infer an ‘ought’ statement from an ‘is’ – or in Sartre’s terminology ontological – statement. And, as Mary Warnock observes wryly in an introduction the 1995 Routledge paperback edition of Being and Nothingness ‘moral philosophy has frequently been required to do more than state that morality is possible’.
In an attempt to address this problem Sartre wrote Existentialism is a Humanism. However, that he has difficulty in creating even the beginning of an ethical position is clear when he states: “Choosing to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose because we can never choose evil.” Really? And further: “We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for any of us unless it is good for all.” This is nothing more than blind assertion without any argument to back it up. It is also manifestly untrue that we always choose the good. Admittedly, he does try to rescue the situation by shoe-horning his concept of bad consciousness into Kant’s categorical imperative, but this is hardly a natural Existentialist position, coming as it does from the architect of transcendental idealism.
Later on Sartre adumbrates the problem when he argues that without God or an ‘immutable human nature’ we will ‘encounter no values or orders that can legitimize our conduct’. And: “Thus, we have neither behind us, nor before us, in the luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. We are left alone without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free: condemned because he did not create himself yet is nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” His God argument is a strange one for a secular thinker because presumably he must hold that there was not a God in the first place so ALL our values have always come from humanity, not a supreme being.
But Sartre ploughs on: “Nor is existentialism an attempt to discourage man from taking action, since it tells him to live in action.” But we are left none the wiser as to what action is morally justified. And again: “Man makes himself; he does not come into the world fully made, he makes himself by choosing his own morality, and his circumstances are such that he has no option other than choose a morality.” But what morality?
What became Existentialism is a Humanism began as a lecture he gave in Paris in 1945, which ended with a question and answer session during which the French surrealist author and leftist Pierre Naville began his question with: “The question that we ought to be asking ourselves…” which then goes on for six pages. One almost begins to feel sorry for Sartre who, amusingly, responds: “It is rather difficult to answer you fully…” Long-winded though he might have been, however, Naville does make some salient points that go to the heart of the problem with Existentialism. Rather than entering the world alone in which they then have to create themselves, Naville argues that it is ‘history that shapes individuals; it is their own history, from the moment of conception, that accounts for the fact that individuals are not born into, and do not appear in a world that provides them with an abstract condition, but they appear in a world they have always been a part of, which conditions them, and they in turn condition, just as the mother conditions the child, her child also conditions her from the moment she becomes pregnant’. His sentences could a bit long winded as well! But he makes an important point, namely that we surely don’t come into this world as a tabula rasa which we then have to write on to create our existence. We are shaped by and, in turn, shape our family, community and culture – always supposing we are in a society that facilitates the emergence of flourishing individuals.
According to Warnock, the aim of Existentialism is a Humanish is to show that if ‘one believes that each man is committed to to believing that he responsible for choosing freedom for himself, one is committed to believing that he is responsible for choosing freedom for others’. This was meant to prove that ‘not only was existentialism active rather than passive in tendency, but it was also liberal, other-regarding and hostile to all forms of tyranny’. Warnock adds: “However, I mention this essay here only to dismiss it, as Sartre has dismissed it. He not only regretted its publication, but also actually denied some of its doctrines in later works.” And she concludes that while the history of Existentialism has power and interest and a ‘certain fascination’ the time has come to consider it as a ‘part of the history of philosophy, not as a means of salvation nor as a doctrine of commitment’. Writing at a time when Sartre was still alive, she adds: “And, as for Sartre himself, we must realize that he is no longer an existentialist at all.”
So, it would appear that Existentialism is not a humanism in the sense that Sartre mean it. Indeed, the problems with Existentialism are similar to all philosophical and political theories that start with the individual as a separate entity from the collective.
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