106 Moral Philosophy: Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrongthat there can be no excuses for one’s actions. This is why the
moral responsibility which falls upon each individual will be
met. In an existential world of no excuses, each man knows full
well when he is wrong, and realizing that fact will act responsi
bly. He says, “nothing can be good for us without being good for
all.” Add to this the concept of Humanism, which Sartre equates
with existentialism, and the idea that while each man is a free,
subjective being, he is first and foremost a man. The human
condition is the same for all. It is the individual nature of each
person which is different. The fact than man’s choices affect
other men inhibits irresponsible behavior.
These profound concerns can lead a person into what Sartre
calls “bad faith.” Bad faith occurs when an individual begins to
treat himself as an object (in-itself) rather than a free, subjective,
and responsible being (for-itself). Rather than accept, without
reservation, responsibility for what one is (remember, we create
ourselves through our choices), the temptation for self-decep
tion is an easy way out. To claim that heredity, social forces, poor
upbringing, subconscious or unconscious motivations, have
contributed to our shortcomings is acting in bad faith. Each
person is responsible, completely and utterly for his actions—
complete freedom requires this to be so, and the self deception
of bad faith is invalid.
Sartre spent the better part of his life describing a philosophy
which can only be called “pessimistic.” His terminology—
nausea, despair, condemned to be free, responsibility, nothing
ness, anxiety is full of words which connote a negative view of
life in this world. In Nausea his hero Roquentin concludes that
“existence is contingent, gratuitous, unjustifiable.” Life is ab
surd in that there is no purpose, no direction, no meaning.
Roquentin lives in the continual frustration of not being able to
escape this “obscene superfluity.”
Also, Sartre contends that “man fundamentally is the desire to
be God.” He desires to be “some thing” rather than nothingness.
Since that is impossible (it’s impossible for God to be God—
God would be for it-self and in it-self by definition), man is
engaged in a struggle which can only frustrate him. In the face
of this bleak philosophy, why should one struggle to achieve the
impossible? Why should one show kindness and charity if the
end is the finality of death?