JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Responsibility197responsibility. That is why I can not ask, “Why was I born?” or curse the day of mybirth or declare that I did not ask to be born, for these various attitudes toward mybirth—i.e., toward the fact that I realize a presence in the world—are absolutelynothing else but ways of assuming this birth in full responsibility and of making itmine. Here again I encounter only myself and my projects so that finally myabandonment—i.e., my facticity—consists simply in the fact that I am condemned tobe wholly responsible for myself. I am the being which is in such a way that in itsbeing its being is in question. And this “is” of my being is as present and inapprehensible.Under these conditions since every event in the world can be revealed to me onlyas an opportunity (an opportunity made use of, lacked, neglected, etc.), or better yetsince everything which happens to us can be considered as a chance (i.e., can appearto us only as a way of realizing this being which is in question in our being) and sinceothers as transcendences-transcended are themselves only opportunities and chances,the responsibility of the for-itself extends to the entire world as a peopled-world. It isprecisely thus that the for-itself apprehends itself in anguish; that is, as a being whichis neither the foundation of its own being nor of the Other’s being nor of the in-itselfswhich form the world, but a being which is compelled to decide the meaning of beingwithinit and everywhere outside of it. The one who realizes in anguish his conditionas being thrown into a responsibility which extends to his very abandonment has nolonger either remorse or regret or excuse; he is no longer anything but a freedom whichperfectly reveals itself and whose being resides in this very revelation. But as wepointed out at the beginning of this work, most of the time we free anguish in bad faith.NOTEBOOKS FOR AN ETHICSThe Good and Subjectivity16 December 45 3The Good has to be done. This signifies that it is the end of an act, without a doubt.But also that it does not exist apart from the act that does it. A Platonic Good thatwould exist in and by itself makes no sense. One would like to say that it is beyondBeing, in fact it would be a Being and, as such, in the first place it would leave uscompletely indifferent, we would slide by it without knowing what to make of it; foranother thing it would be contradictory as an aberrant synthesis of being and ought-tobe.And in parallel to the Christian Good, which has over the former the superiority ofemanating from a subjectivity, if it does perhaps escape contradiction, it would still