Reflection Prompt

Existentialism and Freedom

Sartre’s existentialism makes two claims that pull against each other. The first: there are no objective moral norms; values are the products of human choice, not features of the world waiting to be discovered. The second: bad faith — the attempt to deny or evade one’s freedom — is wrong.

Both of these questions give you something genuinely to argue about. There is no predetermined correct answer. What matters is that you engage with Sartre’s actual text and reasoning, not just with your general feelings about freedom or morality.

Question 1 — Radical Freedom

Sartre claims that human beings are "condemned to be free" — that we cannot escape freedom, and that even refusing to choose is a form of choice. Do you find this convincing? Are there situations in which it seems clearly wrong — cases where people genuinely have no freedom at all? Or does Sartre’s distinction between facticity (the unchosen facts of your situation) and the freedom you exercise in responding to that situation successfully handle these cases?

Question 2 — Bad Faith and Moral Norms

Sartre says there are no objective moral norms, and also that bad faith is wrong. Is he entitled to both claims at once? Think about what resources he has within his own framework for condemning bad faith without appealing to external moral standards. Does his account of consciousness as a for-itself give him what he needs? Or is this an inconsistency that undermines his position?

You might also consider how this tension compares to one we saw in Unit 5: Marx’s difficulty in critiquing capitalism from within a framework that treats all moral positions as products of class interest. Is Sartre’s problem the same? Different?

Your Reflection

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