Existentialist Ethics

Existentialism
• is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence,
freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define
their own meaning in life, and try to make rational
decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It
focuses on the question of human existence, and the
feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core
of existence.
Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must take personal
responsibility for themselves (although with this responsibility comes angst, a
profound anguish or dread).
 Existentialism originated with the 19th Century
philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche,
although neither used the term in their work. In the 1940s
and 1950s, French existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre,
Albert Camus (1913 - 1960), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908
- 1986) wrote scholarly and fictional works that
popularized existential themes, such as dread, boredom,
alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment and
nothingness.
Who are the major thinkers?
Friedrich Nietzsche

Is associated with nihilism, the phrase “God is dead,”

Albert Camus

His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy

known as absurdism
Simone de Beauvoir

Was associated with ideas of ambiguity,

feminist ethics, existential feminism, the
idea that “existence precedes essence,”
Soren Kierkegaard

• people must move beyond judging their

actions according to reason or the
standards of society and become
responsible only to the judgments of God.
• that it is through their choices people to
come to know who they really are and what
they value.
• that works of art are not real; they are
meaningless and lack purpose.
Martin Heidegger

• built on Kierkegaard’s ideas but rejected

his religious beliefs and focus.
• believed that your ‘being’ is always in
question; it doesn’t come ready-made.
• authenticity (being true to one’s self
when making moral choices) is the only
virtue worth striving for in existentialist
theory
Jean-Paul Sartre

• people can never be certain that they

have made the right choices.
• people are free and alone. They are
alone because God does not exist.
• human nature can by summed up in this
three word sentence - Existence precedes
essence.
◉ What "existence precedes
essence" means.
 In what sense is humanity "condemned to be free"?

 The following are not excuses for how we act: from

passion, "That's the way I am," "I couldn't help myself,"
"See what you made me do," and "I just had to do it."
These all entail choices we have made.

 We are condemned to be free because we read the

signs as we choose. We are condemned to establish
our own values.
 Why is forlornness a result of the human condition?

 Sometimes this point is put following Dostoevsky

and Nietzsche: "If God did not exist, everything
would be permitted." The inauthentic rejoinder, in
Sartre's view would be, "If God did not exist it
would be necessary to invent Him." We must take
responsibility for our own choices.
 Why existentialists believe that "in choosing myself, I choose man."

 Through our choices, we determine or create what

we will be. In those choices, we choose according to
what we believe we ought to be.
 Existentialism takes into consideration
the following underlying concepts:
◉ Human free will
◉ Human nature is chosen through life choices
◉ A person is best when struggling against their individual
nature, fighting for life
◉ Decisions are not without stress and consequences
◉ There are things that are not rational
◉ Personal responsibility and discipline is crucial
◉ Society is unnatural and its traditional religious and
secular rules are arbitrary
◉ Worldly desire is futile
◉ No matter what choices one makes in life, the
ultimate outcome is the same (death).