Freedom and Responsibility in Sartre

Sartre explains in “Freedom and Responsibility” that you choose who you are by creating yourself through your choices. Whatever you choose and the repercussions that follow are your responsibility; this is the essence of freedom. For this, he uses the example of war and choosing whether or not to participate in it. When you choose, you adopt your choice as your own image; consequently, you transform and embody that image. You earn this because there are other alternatives you could pursue to avoid this war.

Whether it be suicide or desertion – these possibilities are important to anyone (as well as viable options) when contemplating a situation and what you are going to do.

So, if you do not choose to get out of going to war, you choose to go to war. He states that whether it is due to inertia, being afraid of what others would think (cowardice), or whether you prefer the values of going to war versus the values of not going to war – whatever the case may be, it is a matter of choice. This choice will have to be renewed day by day until the war is over. So, if you prefer war to death or dishonor, you bear the responsibility for war and all that comes with it. What you choose becomes your image, and thus you obtain responsibility for the things that happen resulting from your choice. Others may have declared the war, and through this fact, one may try to consider oneself just an accomplice. Sartre explains this is a complicit idea and is only the case juridically speaking and does not hold true in this situation. It depends on you and your choosing that the war should exist, and you decide that it does exist by choosing it.

There is no compulsion or obligation to choose either war, suicide, or desertion, for compulsion has no hold on freedom. Thus, man is without excuse. Furthermore, the war is yours because it comes in a reality which you caused to be, and through engaging yourself in it, given that is what you chose. You cannot differentiate yourself from the choice you make regarding the war. To live this war is to create yourself through the war — whether that be for or against it. You choose whether the war is real to you by the choice you make about what you personally will do about it. Though you did not initiate it, you are still responsible for what you do about what has been started. Once you choose to participate in the war, you become the war and your image is that of the soldier.

Sartre explains that a person is the best they can be at that current point in time. You are what you make yourself from your choices and what you choose from all the knowledge and techniques found in the world. Furthermore, what you become and what you choose reveals whatever techniques and knowledge were chosen. What you are on a current date is a complete version of yourself, and it would be unthinkable to imagine what you were in the past and what you will be in the future. Therefore, going back to the example of the war, it would be meaningless to question what you would be if the war did not exist. You have chosen what you are going to be in the current time period in which you are living, and in this example, that time period has led to war. You are not distinct from the time period in which you live, and you cannot be transported into another era without the denial of reality. Thus, you are the war because you live in the era in which the war is happening. By choosing to participate in this war, you engage yourself totally and completely, without excuses, remorse, or regret. In doing so, you carry this burden by yourself, without anyone to ease this weight.

Sartre then moves to define this responsibility. He suggests that one might say they did not ask to be born, which he defines as a naive way of emphasizing our facticity. Sartre explains we are responsible for everything except one’s very responsibility—asserting that we are not at the foundation of our own being. (My personal understanding of having responsibility for everything except their own responsibility is that you are responsible for all things apart from having responsibilities.) He clarifies this by painting a picture of abandonment. One is not abandoned in the sense of being a board floating in the middle of the ocean. The abandonment he speaks of is being engaged in a world for which one bears all responsibility—without being able to extricate oneself from this responsibility. In other words, we are abandoned to our fate, which dictates that we have no way of escaping our responsibilities. You are even responsible for your desire to escape these responsibilities.

“To become passive is still a choice, as is suicide. Whether one is ashamed of being born, astonished by it, or rejoices over it, or whether one has the desire to destroy their life through suicide, one affirms that one lives, and their life is bad,” explains Sartre. This is related to facticity and responsibility: the inability to ask why one was born and having negative attitudes relating to your birth (such as cursing the day you were born), because these attitudes are nothing but ways of assuming responsibility for your birth and making it your own. Through any such attitude, you come to realize your facticity, which is your abandonment and being wholly responsible for yourself. Under these conditions, one understands that an event that occurs in the world is now presented to you as an opportunity or chance.

Opportunities are either made use of or neglected, and chances appear to us as a way of realizing an opportunity and deciding how and if you will act on it. Sartre explains others as transcendences, and they themselves are only opportunities and chances. The responsibility for a person extends to the entire world because these people – who are now seen as opportunities and chances – are what make up the world. It is in this circumstance and realization that one finds anguish. One must give meaning to beings, chances, and opportunities. Upon realizing this anguish, one assumes absolute responsibility, which is his abandonment, and is unable to feel remorse, regret, or excuse. He only has absolute freedom, which is revealed through this revelation. This is where one obtains and realizes their freedom.

Did you like this example?

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