Tuesday 13 April 2010

The concept of freedom according to Sartre is questionable; one cannot argue that we are completely autonomous free beings. As our lives have been influenced by society and the people around us such as friends and family. So the freedom to make our decisions is also limited because we are influenced by others around us. Therefore one can argue that Sartre is mistaken when he argues that we are free to make decisions and to choose what and how one wants to act. This can be applied to the case of the woman on her first date, her decision is not purely based on her freedom to make whatever decision she wants, as her opinions and views on making certain decisions for example how to behave on a first date have been influenced by others. One can argue that the example given by Sartre of the homosexual feeling guilty is also flawed. As he was emphasizing on how one should not deny another human beings transcendence, he stresses the fact that we are all free to choose and others can not choose for us. At the moment you choose decisions for another person you are intervening and are denying their transcendence. But this is not the case as one can argue that complete freedom to make decisions and to choose does not exist.
Sartre’s argument on bad faith is debatable there are any problems with it. One of which was mentioned by Anju about morality. Although Sartre stresses that were are free beings and we have freedom of our consciousness is he then arguing that moral problems such as paedophilia and rape mentioned by Anju are acceptable? Are these incidents according to Sartre a case of freedom and an individual wanting to act in such an immoral manner acceptable? So would Sartre argue that paedophiles and rapists are in bad faith if they do not commit such acts which they desire to? One can argue no in the sense that Sartre also stresses that of course we are responsible for our bad faith but we are also responsible for our freedom so it is up to the individual to make certain choices such as to act in an immoral way or not.

Sunday 11 April 2010

Sartre's philosopy, that the self is "nothing" cannot ground any ethical orders because if we follow Sartre's train of logic, we have negated what is - in other words, our own awareness of what we lack, including unsatisfied desires and expectations, is not reality. Because of our own awareness, we have brought nothingness to the world. Sartre says that nothingness is the basis of all philosphical inquiry and according to his theory we are not part of any order because we can choose to withdraw from this order. Sartre argues that bad faith is essentially lying to ourselves, which is closely tied to inauthenticity and that both ideas are attempts to escape the truth of what we are as human beings.

The main problem that I found with this theory is that Sartre gives us no moral guidance if we wish to avoid bad faith and is problematic because we are not introduced to a way of finding good faith other than our own freedom.

Thursday 8 April 2010

The thought of existentialism may sound great to begin with - claiming that individuals are always free to make choices and guide their lives towards their own chosen goal or project. On the surface that may sounf applausible, but what about in such cases that you hear of in the news - the mother who starved her child to death even going to the extent of locking the cupboards preventing the child accessing food, what about the victims of rape and peodohilia....etc. What about the freedom of those victims, whose freedom is being stolen away in such cases, the childs basic freedom of food to satisfy their hunger, the freedom for protection from individuals who see children them as sexual objects for their own desires and needs, the freedom of the woman who's body is being used against her will.
In these cases is it okay to say the individual(s) inflicting the pain and suffereing on another individual (the victim), its acceptable for them to do so because it was their chosen goal or project and that they are free to make those choices - what about morality?