The Concept of Freedom in the Philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre

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Javid Ahmad Mallah

Senior ICSSR Fellow
Department of philosophy,
Savitribai Phule Pune University.

Existentialism a philosophical movement has managed to capture the attention of general people.
It is a type of philosophy which endeavors to analyze the basic structure of human existence in its
essential freedom. Jean Paul Sartre is one of the most important philosophers of existentialism in
twentieth century. He announced that human freedom is absolute he also want to show that in
man’s life ‘existence precedes essence’. Freedom is the heart of Sartre’s philosophy and also it
has the central place in existential philosophy. He said freedom is an act of choice and humans
are free to make choices. According to Sartre, “Man is condemned to be free” this famous
statement of Sartre “Man is condemned to be free” both in Sartre’s major philosophical work,
“Being and nothingness” and his well known lecture “Existentialism is Humanism” has profound
implications for freedom of man. In order to discuss freedom from specific point of view I need
to look at two basic principles of Sartre, “Existence precedes essence” and the categories ‘being-
in-itself’ and ‘being-for-itself’ in which he has divided the world. I believe it is necessary to
understand these two concepts to appreciate the depth and profoundness of human freedom. This
statement of Sartre, existence Precedes essence has raised categorization of all things into duality.
First, ‘Being-in-itself’ and second ‘Being-for-itself’. Being-in-itself is the group of ‘things’ such
as rocks, trees and paper-knifes and there characteristics are as: they are not free, they are not
responsible they have determined essence and they are fixed and complete.

The second category is being-for-itself. This is the category of conscious subjects and
these conscious subjects are characterized as, free beings, responsible for themselves, they have
no determined essence and they are not fixed and can never be complete. Sartre’s duality of non-
conscious object’s and self conscious subjects is the basis of his assertion that only self conscious
subjects ‘human being’ can be free. As Sartre strongly asserts that, “I am condemned to be free”1.
Sartre defined freedom as the being for-itself which is free to choose and make itself, freedom is
not to obtain what one has wished but rather to determine one to wish. If we talk about an object,
being-in-itself, that is determined by its essence, like a tree it is not free to choose its destiny
because it must live its life according to its nature. Sartre said we humans have no intrinsic nature
or essence because we have the unique ability of conscious self-reflection and we are free to
determine ourselves. I would like to mention here about two categories of Sartre non-conscious
objects and conscious subjects, Sartre said only conscious subjects (human beings) are free. It is
necessary to note that Sartre did not use consciousness in a simple manner as merely awareness
but self- reflective awareness. This is the reason he asserted that only self- conscious subjects
‘human beings’ can be free. Sartre strongly said that, “Man is condemned to be free.”2 Because
we have not any choice in the matter of freedom and being free. Sartre said we are thrown in this
world and after that we are completely responsible, for everything we do. When we have no chance
in whether we will be free to choose and then be responsible for all our activities in future is indeed
‘condemnation’. And further when we make things worse, we cannot blame anybody or anything
for it. Sartre rejected God as a deterministic father and said we cannot blame god, also we cannot
blame our parents, our teachers our government for our predicaments they have nothing to do with
it. It is called real irony in the philosophy of Sartre.

Sartre a foremost philosopher of freedom keeps freedom as the central concern of his
philosophy. Freedom and existence are two identical concepts according to Sartre. As he said,
“man is not only free man is freedom”3. Freedom is the entirety of human existence it involves
both choices and responsibilities, man is always free within his situation to choose the meaning of
his life, and he is free to reconstruct and change it. It has been believed that life is predetermined
because of past events, but Sartre strongly rejected this argument by saying that we definitely are
not forced by past events and choices. But Sartre believed that human beings are always free to
make their own decisions and choices. This belief refused the argument which states that life is
predetermined by our past events. Sartre does not deny there are some things which we cannot

1
H. J. Blackham, “Six Existentialist Thinkers”, Routledge and Kegan Paul, ltd Landon, 1952, p128.

2
H. J. Blackham, “Six Existentialist Thinkers”, Routledge and kegan paul, ltd landon, 1952, p128.

3
Ibid,p. 34.
change or influence. Such as, where we were born and who our parents are, but Sartre believes
that we can change our attitude towards them. It is useless to say and Sartre totally rejects this
concept that our genetics and upbringing shapes us who we are today. Instead Sartre contends that
humans have the responsibility to choose what we become “That man has to decide what he is and
what others are”4.

Human being from Sartre’s philosophical point of view is a unique being. A human being
with his consciousness is higher and obviously unique among all things and beings in the world.
Human being is unique not only because of his ability and capability to admit and accept things,
laws, rules, relations, customs and values rationally and responsibly. But also human beings have
a unique power to negate things, laws and regulations, orders and commandments, community and
government if it obstructs the growth and development of human freedom. This power of negation
is stressed by Sartre as a clue which reveals human nature as free.

By accenting the negating power of consciousness in relation to being-in-itself, Sartre has

interpreted consciousness as a form of being which always seeks to transcend itself but cannot
finishes its task fully. It seems to Sartre that we humans move to leave behind what we have been
and to become what we are not. It seems clear to Sartre, that we humans are not fixed, and static
nor complete like objects. We are what we become more than what we are. In that sense, our
existence precedes the formation of our essence. Sartre identified the negating power of
consciousness with human freedom. As he said, “choice and consciousness is one and the same
thing”5. Hence our power to negate remains a clue which reveals our nature as free. According to
Sartre, the life of an individual is characterized by his freedom, by choosing what one will be and
how one will see the world in which he resides. What an individual is, it is only the results of his
individual choices and it’s not from a series of determined causes outside of an individual or even
within an individual.

Everywhere human existence is situated in particular times and particular places and it is
specified further by the relations we establish with other peoples. And there are many situations
that are full of pains and tragedies. But freedom of man remains, because we keep seeking freely
to make something better of ourselves. Freedom allows individuals to create their own world and

4
Jean Paul Sartre, “Existentialism and Humanism” trns. By Philip mairet, Methuen and co.ltd., London, 1948,p 34
5
H. J. Blackham, “Six Existentialist Thinkers”, Routledge and kegan paul, ltd landon, 1952, p.130.
each individual being is totally free to fulfill their will or craving and create their own meaning
and destiny. So we can say, man is completely free but responsible being. Thus man is not only
free he is responsible also of his actions and decisions which he chooses. Sartre declared
confidentially that we are responsible, for making what we are and what we will be, because such
responsibility is awesome, our freedom can be dreadful, and we may try to run away from it or
flee from it. Sartre called that Flight ‘bad faith’. It is a situation, in which I know the truth and I
conceal it from myself, is bad faith. Sartre wants to put honesty and responsibility and it was also
his view that doing the best we can require, first and foremost, an honest appraisal of the degree
to which we are responsible for ourselves and for each other. We have to choose between good
and evil as what will be good and what will be evil. Such norms are not fixed in advance. There
may be different norms and in this way whatever norms do exist, we have to choose them to
authoritative. It cannot be called realization that values are irrational and arbitrary but it means
that we can decide and we must decide what we ought to do. How to use our freedom is the
responsibility of ours and ours alone.

According to Sartre, “Man is indeed a project which possesses a subjective life”6. Man
as being condemned to free bears the charge of the whole world on his shoulders. In other words
freedom means to take charge of one’s actions and decisions and to take burden of responsibilities
on ones shoulder. What is happening in the world has its significance because of man and he builds
up the world by his actions. In the words of Sartre, “We have neither behind us, nor before us in a
luminous realm of values, by any means of justification or excuse. We are left alone without
excuse”7. Sartre says that we are thrown into this world, but it does not mean that we have to
remain inactive in this world. But it means that when we find ourselves alone in this world we
need to move on and to carry out to take the heavy responsibility without anyone’s support. And
we have no chance to run away from this responsibility. Sartre said, sometimes I am ashamed of
my birth or I am happy for it. Sometimes I wonder at my birth and sometimes I may try to suicide
because of misery and suffering of my life. Thus, in this sense I have chosen my life. In this
situation the events of the world are either chances to me or lack of chances. They may also appear
as the source by which I have responsibility towards the world. In this connection Sartre said that,

6
Philip mairet, “ibid”,p 28.
7
Philip mairet,”ibid”p 34.
it is precisely the for-itself (human beings) who apprehends in anguish and stands strong to decide
and to choose everywhere. In anguish one who realizes his condition as being thrown into a
responsibility which extends his abandonment has no longer either remorse or excuse, he is no
longer anything but a freedom which perfectly reveals itself and whose being resides in this very
revelation. This responsibility has been carried by the individual himself alone. A man is always
engaged in an effort to create himself by a free project for which he is completely responsible. The
most significant, personal contribution and predominant thing of Sartre by which his philosophy
became popular and the best known for, was the way he stressed uncompromisingly the freedom
of an individual. In a Godless world, he said we have no alternative but to choose, and in that sense
we can create our own values. While doing this we are living our lives according to our wishes
and rules of our own lives. And by doing that we are determining how our own personalities will
develop, we are making ourselves complete with the help of freely chosen commitments, acts and
decisions. Our freedom by which we are able to take decisions, and make choices are the basic
element of our existence and is inseparable from us.

I believe that the whole purpose of Sartre’s philosophy is to make people aware about their
existence, freedom and responsibility and to show them that they are free and creative beings.
According to him, nothing could be more practical, affirmative and optimistic philosophy of
human existence than showing people that they are free at all times. And without freedom our
existence becomes absurd and meaningless. Life according Sartre is absurd, and it has no meaning
or ultimate purpose, but human beings need it to make sense of it and to have meaning and purpose.
For human beings, existence precedes essence we are defined by our choices and actions and not
by a fixed human nature. And Sartre said that, the recognition and acceptance of one’s freedom,
responsibility and of the consequent experience of life is good faith. And the refusal to recognize
and accept the consequences of human freedom and responsibility is bad faith or self-deception.
According to Sartre, there is no God to design man; man has not any blue print, nor essence. His
essence or nature comes not from God but from his own free choices and decisions and man is free
to make himself according his wishes and cravings.