JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

188Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingsprecisely at the same moment at which it posits them as non-existent? And if nihilationis precisely the being of freedom, how can we refuse autonomy to the passions inorder to grant it to the will?But this is not all: the will, far from being the unique or at least the privilegedmanifestation of freedom, actually—like every event of the for-itself—mustpresuppose the foundation of an original freedom in order to be able to constituteitself as will. The will in fact is posited as a reflective decision in relation to certainends. But it does not create these ends. It is rather a mode of being in relation to them:it decrees that the pursuit of these ends will be reflective and deliberative. Passion canposit the same ends. For example, if I am threatened, I can run away at top speedbecause of my fear of dying. This passional fact nevertheless posits implicitly as asupreme end the value of life. Another person in the same situation will, on thecontrary, understand that he must remain at his post even if resistance at first appearsmore dangerous than flight; he “will stand firm.” But his goal, although better understoodand explicitly posited, remains the same as in the case of the emotional reaction. It issimply that the methods of attaining it are more clearly conceived; certain of them arerejected as dubious or inefficacious, others are more solidly organized. The differencehere depends on the choice of means and on the degree of reflection and of makingexplicit, not on the end. Yet the one who flees is said to be “passionate,” and wereserve the term “voluntary” for the man who resists. Therefore the question is of adifference of subjective attitude in relation to a transcendent end. But if we wish toavoid the error which we denounced earlier and not consider these transcendent endsas pre-human and as an a priori limit to our transcendence, then we are indeedcompelled to recognize that they are the temporalizing projection of our freedom.Human reality can not receive its ends, as we have seen, either from outside or from aso-called inner “nature.” It chooses them and by this very choice confers upon thema transcendent existence as the external limit of its projects. From this point of view—and if it is understood that the existence of the Dasein precedes and commands itsessence—human reality in and through its very upsurge decides to define its ownbeing by its ends. It is therefore the positing of my ultimate ends which characterizesmy being and which is identical with the sudden thrust of the freedom which is mine.And this thrust is an existence; it has nothing to do with an essence or with a propertyof a being which would be engendered conjointly with an idea.Thus since freedom is identical with my existence, it is the foundation of endswhich I shall attempt to attain either by the will or by passionate efforts. Therefore itcan not be limited to voluntary acts. Volitions, on the contrary, like passions arecertain subjective attitudes by which we attempt to attain the ends posited by originalfreedom. By original freedom, of course, we should not understand a freedom which