(1) Historical background, & two kinds of existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical movement of the late 19^th, 20^th, & 21^st centuries, originated and developed by such philosophers as Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

According to the existentialists, "human existence is prior to human essence."

There are two forms of existentialism: (1) theistic existentialism, and (2) atheistic existentialism.

According to theistic existentialism (e.g., Kierkegaard, Heidegger), God has created us & yet has also apparently withdrawn from Her creation--so that we find ourselves bereft of divine guidance & lost in the world & questioning our faith. Then in the face of a seemingly meaningless, pointless world, individuals must create meaningful lives for themselves by making active choices and by taking full responsibility for those choices.

According to atheistic existentialism, "God is dead." This is because the very idea of God contains a tragic incoherence:

Assume that God exists and is all-powerful & all-knowing & all-good. Then also assume that evil exists in the world. Then God is either responsible for the existence of evil, in which case God is Himself evil & not all-good; or else God is not responsible for the existence of evil & yet knew that it was going to happen & couldn’t prevent it--so God is not all-powerful; or else God would have prevented evil but didn’t know it was going to happen, and is therefore not all-knowing. So given evil, God is either not all-good, not all-powerful, not all-knowing, or does not exist.

The atheistic existentialist then concludes that God does not exist. What this means is that human beings have no pre-established nature or essence or goal for their lives, and that in the face of a meaningless pointless world, individuals must create meaningful lives for themselves by making active choices and by taking full responsibility for those choices.

(2) Existential ethics

Existentialism is also the basis of an ethics. According to existential ethics (EE), the highest good for humans is "becoming an individual" (Kierkegaard) or "authenticity" (Heidegger, Sartre) = psychological coherence + integrity = not merely being alive but having a real life by being true to yourself (a.k.a. "the higher selfishness").

(3) Authenticity & human freedom

Freedom, or the human ability to make choices and take responsibility, determines authenticity. Thus the act of choice is an act of self-creation: we are nothing but we make of ourselves.

Freedom in the existential sense entails that at least sometimes you must take full responsibility for things over which you have no control.

So what you ought to do, or what is morally right, according to EE, is to choose a particular way of life, and to take full responsibility for that life (Sartre: "no excuses"!).

(4) Inauthenticity & human unfreedom

The failure to choose in this way, or the failure to take full responsibility for one’s choices, is "inauthenticity" = psychic incoherence + lack of integrity (self-conflict, self-deception, bad faith, not being true to yourself, etc.).

According to EE, the worst thing of all is inauthenticity & unfreedom, so it is morally impermissible.

(5) EE vs. Kantian ethics & Utilitarianism

EE can be significantly compared and contrasted with both Kantian Ethics (KE) and Utilitarianism (U-ism).

Both KE and EE emphasize human freedom. And both are versions of intrinsic-value-based morality. But whereas KE is based fundamentally on our innate rationality and duty according to the Categorical Imperative (CI), EE is based fundamentally on our emotions and duty to oneself.

For EE, sometimes being authentic requires violating the CI (e.g., telling a lie, not preserving one’s rationality, not developing one’s talents, or not helping others in need).

Both U-ism and EE emphasize human feelings. But whereas U-ism is based on the Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP) and is consequentialist, EE emphasizes the standpoint of the first person or conscious/self-conscious subject and is non-consequentialist.

For EE, sometimes being authentic requires violating the GHP (e.g., not maximizing act-utility or rule-utility).

(6) Kierkegaard, "Fear and Trembling (Problems I & II)"

--the old testament story of Abraham & Isaac: here there is a "teleological suspension of the ethical"

--the ethical = the universal or what is required of everyone, and teleology = a final aim or purpose, hence a teleological suspension of the ethical means that your final aim or purpose is to act without any guidance from universal law, entirely on your own

--thus A. is required by God to do precisely what cannot be his duty according to un iversal law because it is murder = sacrificing his most beloved son, hence A. is required to be entirely alone & individual & to test his faith to the absolute limit by doing something that he cannot possibly understand to be right or good

--the tragic hero vs. the knight of faith: the tragic hero (Agamemnon) is punished by the gods & required to do something awful for which he ultimately bears no individual responsibility (killing his own daughter Iphigeneia at Aulis) & suffers his fate; but the knight of faith is paradoxically rewarded for his faithfulness by God who compels him to take personal responsibility for an act he cannot possibly regard as right or good

--hence A.’s sublime act of sacrificing his most beloved son Isaac is a "leap of faith" based entirely on passionate blind commitment, not knowledge or rationality

(7) Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

--human life is absurd

a world without God, hence with out transcendent meanings or essences or purposes; absurdity as aimlessness, alienation, blind habit, the sleep of consciousness, meaningless matter & motion
 

forlornness, the issue of premature death = unrealized possibilities = why death is a bad thing

[cf. Lucretius’s question: if we aren’t bothered by not having existed before we were born, why do we think that non-existence in the future is a bad thing?

Answer: although we needn’t have lived, having actually lived makes the future a potential source of value, hence death entails the loss of that value]

active, free rejection of suicide-->affirmation of life as it actually is, no matter how awful the external circumstances = an injection of meaning into an otherwise meaningless world

affirmation of the absurd, appropriation of the actual, full acceptance of responsibility for the past & the present

(8) Sartre, "Existentialism is a Humanism"

--A worry about Camus’s EE: does it lead to quietism?

--Sartre: no! Anguish = recognizing the crushing weight of our freedom

--freedom is not selfish:

"When we say that man chooses his own self, we mean that every one of us does likewise; but we also mean that in making his choice he chooses all men. In fact, in creating the man that we want to be, there is not single one of our acts which does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be" (445).

--a boy and his mother (447): his dilemma is either to join the Resistance & neglect his mother, or else stay with his mother & join the Resistance & neglect his larger duty:

what ought he to do in order to act authentically & take responsibility?