Introduction to Philosophy

Achieve Test Prep: Philosophy

anguish, and despair with uncommon courage. Sartre contends that our moral instincts, emotions, conscience are notoriously unreliable and difficult to interpret and we discover which instinct or emotion is stronger by what alternative we choose, but then it too late to use this instinct or emotion as a guide and describes this reasoning as a vicious circle. Sartre feels that it is often difficult to discern the strength of emotions and instincts when they are in conflict with one another and it is also difficulty to differentiate authentic emotions from false emotions. He believes that we cannot discover moral guidance by trying to follow our moral instincts and emotions any more than we can look to external moral codes for moral direction. Sartre’s point is that we cannot rely on other people for moral instruction because by selecting the person we are going to for advice, we ourselves are already making the choice of which alternative to select. We know what their values and biases are and we can be fairly certain of what advice they will give us. Sartre’s ethics reinforce the primary individual and his absolute freedom in the absence of God or other universalizing moral force and emphasizes that the moral choices we make are not just for ourselves in isolation, but for all humankind. In the final analysis, this is your choice and your choice alone, for which you are fully responsible. De Beauvoir: Our Interplay with Others Defines Us Simone de Beauvoir was another existentialist and feminist philosopher who argues that women, historically subordinate to men, have been relegated to the category of the other sex. In her writing called The Ethics of Ambiguity , she considers freedom to be radical in nature and central to the human experience. She believed that freedom is the source of all value in human experience and as it projects itself outward through intention and action, it confers value. The act of choosing freely also reveals a desire on our part that there be a world in which our choices can have meaning, a world populated with other freely choosing agents. Our freedom, which defines our existence, only has meaning in relationship to others who are exercising their freedom of choice. Even when others make choices that challenge or interfere with our own choices, we recognize that the only way we can define ourselves as humans is through our interaction with others. We need other people to become fully human, and this is the existential basis for morality. The essence of being human is to be continually exercising our freedom of choice, projecting ourselves into the future, transcending ourselves, continually evolving. This is only possible through our interplay with others, who are striving to achieve the same significance for themselves through the choices they make. Our existence can have meaning only in relationship to the existence of others. Our freedom to choose can exist only in relation to the freedom of choice exercised by others. Thus the choices we make as we define who we are must necessarily reflect the kinds of choices that we believe all men and women should make, for we are connected to one another in ways that are profound and inescapable.

Camus: Courage is the Highest Value Camus was a French existentialist philosopher who dealt with what he felt was the absurd situation of human beings in which the world is essentially irrational, yet we still need to find meaning within it. In Camus’ writing titled The Myths of Sisyphus , he provided an analysis of human existence based on an

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