JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing
JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing
Freedom181construction of what Sartre would call a free society: a society we wouldfreely choose rather than historically inherit. Our dispositional capacity tochoose continues to ontologically differentiate us from naturally occurringobjects and artefacts even though we are denied the power to create a freesociety in Sartre’s sense.Freedom is exercised in history. It is not an option for me to freely act inthe situation of a late-nineteenth-century German coal miner if I am amidtwentieth-century French intellectual. My historical location opens forme a range of actions I may perform but there is an infinity of actions whichare closed. There is a dialectical dependency between freedom and truth.There is no truth without freedom and no freedom without truth. A humanbeing is free but at the same time in bondage; a chooser whose power ispolitically and historically constrained. It is only at the moment of death thata human being is complete. Before death a brave person could become acoward or a coward could become brave. Only death brings an end tofreedom.BEING AND NOTHINGNESSBeing and doing: freedom[. . .] at the outset we can see what is lacking in those tedious discussions betweendeterminists and the proponents of free will. The latter are concerned to find cases ofdecision for which there exists no prior cause, or deliberations concerning two opposedacts which are equally possible and possess causes (and motives) of exactly the sameweight. To which the determinists may easily reply that there is no action without acause and that the most insignificant gesture (raising the right hand rather than the lefthand, etc.) refers to causes and motives which confer its meaning upon it. Indeed thecase could not be otherwise since every action must be intentional; each action must,in fact, have an end and the end in turn is referred to a cause. Such indeed is the unityof the three temporal ekstases; the end or temporalization of my future implies a cause(or motive); that is, it points toward my past, and the present is the upsurge of the act.To speak of an act without a cause is to speak of an act which would Jack theintentional structure of every act; and the proponents of free will by searching for it onthe level of the act which is in the process of being performed can only end up byrendering the act absurd. But the determinists in turn are weighting the scale bystopping their investigation with the mere designation of the cause and motive. The
182Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingsessential question in fact lies beyond the complex organization “cause-intention-actend”;indeed we ought to ask how a cause (or motive) can be constituted as such.Now we have just seen that if there is no act without a cause, this is not in the sensethat we can say that there is no phenomenon without a cause. In order to be a cause,the cause must be experienced as such. Of course this does not mean that it is to bethematically conceived and made explicit as in the case of deliberation. But at the veryleast it means that the for-itself must confer on it its value as cause or motive. And, aswe have seen, this constitution of the cause as such can not refer to another real andpositive existence; that is, to a prior cause. For otherwise the very nature of the act asengaged intentionally in non-being would disappear. The motive is understood onlyby the end; that is, by the non-existent. It is therefore in itself a négatité. If I accept aniggardly salary it is doubtless because of fear; and fear is a motive. But it is fear ofdying from starvation; that is, this fear has meaning only outside itself in an endideally posited, which is the preservation of a life which I apprehend as “in danger.”And this fear is understood in turn only in relation to the value which I implicitly giveto this life; that is, it is referred to that hierarchal system of ideal objects which arevalues. Thus the motive makes itself understood as what it is by means of the ensembleof beings which “are not,” by ideal existences, and by the future. Just as the futureturns back upon the present and the past in order to elucidate them, so it is theensemble of my projects which turns back in order to confer upon the motive itsstructure as a motive. It is only because I escape the in-itself by nihilating myselftoward my possibilities that this in-itself can take on value as cause or motive. Causesand motives have meaning only inside a projected ensemble which is precisely anensemble of non-existents. And this ensemble is ultimately myself as transcendence;it is Me in so far as I have to be myself outside of myself.If we recall the principle which we established earlier—namely that it is theapprehension of a revolution as possible which gives to the workman’s suffering itsvalue as a motive—we must thereby conclude that it is by fleeing a situation towardour possibility of changing it that we organize this situation into complexes of causesand motives. The nihilation by which we achieve a withdrawal in relation to thesituation is the same as the ekstasis by which we project ourselves toward a modificationof this situation. The result is that it is in fact impossible to find an act without amotive but that this does not mean that we must conclude that the motive causes theact; the motive is an integral part of the act. For as the resolute project toward a changeis not distinct from the act, the motive, the act, and the end are all constituted in asingle upsurge. Each of these three structures claims the two others as its meaning. Butthe organized totality of the three is no longer explained by any particular structure,and its upsurge as the pure temporalizing nihilation of the in-itself is one with freedom.
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182Jean-Paul <strong>Sartre</strong>: <strong>Basic</strong> <strong>Writing</strong>sessential question in fact lies beyond the complex organization “cause-intention-actend”;indeed we ought to ask how a cause (or motive) can be constituted as such.Now we have just seen that if there is no act without a cause, this is not in the sensethat we can say that there is no phenomenon without a cause. In order to be a cause,the cause must be experienced as such. Of course this does not mean that it is to bethematically conceived and made explicit as in the case of deliberation. But at the veryleast it means that the for-itself must confer on it its value as cause or motive. And, aswe have seen, this constitution of the cause as such can not refer to another real andpositive existence; that is, to a prior cause. For otherwise the very nature of the act asengaged intentionally in non-being would disappear. The motive is understood onlyby the end; that is, by the non-existent. It is therefore in itself a négatité. If I accept aniggardly salary it is doubtless because of fear; and fear is a motive. But it is fear ofdying from starvation; that is, this fear has meaning only outside itself in an endideally posited, which is the preservation of a life which I apprehend as “in danger.”And this fear is understood in turn only in relation to the value which I implicitly giveto this life; that is, it is referred to that hierarchal system of ideal objects which arevalues. Thus the motive makes itself understood as what it is by means of the ensembleof beings which “are not,” by ideal existences, and by the future. Just as the futureturns back upon the present and the past in order to elucidate them, so it is theensemble of my projects which turns back in order to confer upon the motive itsstructure as a motive. It is only because I escape the in-itself by nihilating myselftoward my possibilities that this in-itself can take on value as cause or motive. Causesand motives have meaning only inside a projected ensemble which is precisely anensemble of non-existents. And this ensemble is ultimately myself as transcendence;it is Me in so far as I have to be myself outside of myself.If we recall the principle which we established earlier—namely that it is theapprehension of a revolution as possible which gives to the workman’s suffering itsvalue as a motive—we must thereby conclude that it is by fleeing a situation towardour possibility of changing it that we organize this situation into complexes of causesand motives. The nihilation by which we achieve a withdrawal in relation to thesituation is the same as the ekstasis by which we project ourselves toward a modificationof this situation. The result is that it is in fact impossible to find an act without amotive but that this does not mean that we must conclude that the motive causes theact; the motive is an integral part of the act. For as the resolute project toward a changeis not distinct from the act, the motive, the act, and the end are all constituted in asingle upsurge. Each of these three structures claims the two others as its meaning. Butthe organized totality of the three is no longer explained by any particular structure,and its upsurge as the pure temporalizing nihilation of the in-itself is one with freedom.