JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Existentialism43community. We will freedom for freedom’s sake, and in and through particularcircumstances. And in thus willing freedom we discover that it depends entirely uponthe freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously,freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as thereis a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as mine. Icannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim. Consequently,when I recognise, as entirely authentic, that man is a being whose existence precedeshis essence, and that he is a free being who cannot, in any circumstances, but will hisfreedom, at the same time I realise that I cannot not will the freedom of others. Thus,in the name of that will to freedom which is implied in freedom itself I can formjudgments upon those who seek to hide from themselves the wholly voluntary natureof their existence and its complete freedom. Those who hide from this total freedom,in a guise of solemnity or with deterministic excuses, I shall call cowards. Others, whotry to show that their existence is necessary, when it is merely an accident of theappearance of the human race on earth,— I shall call scum. But neither cowards norscum can be identified except upon the plane of strict authenticity. Thus, although thecontent of morality is variable, a certain form of this morality is universal. Kantdeclared that freedom is a will both to itself and to the freedom of others. Agreed: buthe thinks that the formal and the universal suffice for the constitution of a morality.We think, on the contrary, that principles that are too abstract break down when wecome to defining action. To take once again the case of that student; by what authority,in the name of what golden rule of morality, do you think he could have decided, inperfect peace of mind, either to abandon his mother or to remain with her? There areno means of judging. The content is always concrete and therefore unpredictable; ithas always to be invented. The one thing that counts, is to know whether the inventionis made in the name of freedom.Let us, for example, examine the two following cases, and you will see how far theyare similar in spite of their difference. Let us take The Mill on the Floss. We find herea certain young woman, Maggie Tulliver, who is an incarnation of the value of passionand is aware of it. She is in love with a young man, Stephen, who is engaged to another,an insignificant young woman. This Maggie Tulliver, instead of heedlessly seeking herown happiness, chooses in the name of human solidarity to sacrifice herself and togive up the man she loves. On the other hand, La Sanseverina in Stendhal’s Chartreusede Parme, believing that it is passion which endows man with his real value, wouldhave declared that a grand passion justifies its sacrifices, and must be preferred to thebanality of such conjugal love as would unite Stephen to the little goose he wasengaged to marry. It is the latter that she would have chosen to sacrifice in realising her