F
REEDOM, DETERMINISM, AND CHANCE IN
THE EARLY
PHILOSOPHY OF SARTRE
BY WESLEY MORRISTON
(The Personalist July 1977)
It is well known that in Being and
Nothingness
Sartre rejected any and all forms of
causal
determinism—even the "psychological"
determinism which finds the immediate
causes
of action and choice in the desires
and beliefs
of the agent. But if there is anything
we
should have learned from the history
of the
free-will controversy, it is that the
rejection
of determinism is not equivalent to
the affirmation
of the reality of freedom and responsibility.
From the fact that an act is not causally
determined, it does not follow that
anyone
is responsible for it. The act might,
after
all, be a mere matter of chance; and
our
idea of freedom, whatever else it may
be,
is certainly not that of a random series
of inexplicable acts. The chief problem
for
a libertarian account of freedom and
responsibility
is therefore to say just what distinguishes
a free and uncaused act from one that
occurs
merely by chance.
Sartre was not unaware of this difficulty,
as a careful reader of Being and Nothingness
soon discovers. In one passage he asks
whether
the rejection of determinism and the
affirmation
of freedom "means that one must
view
freedom as a series of capricious jerks
comparable
to the Epicurean Clinamen." And
in the
same passage Sartre concedes that because
the proponents of free-will have failed
to
respond satisfactorily to this challenge,
"worthy thinkers have turned away
from
a belief in freedom."
One could even state that determinism
. .
. is "more human" than the
theory
of free-will. In fact, while determinism
throws into relief the strict conditioning
of our acts, it does at least give
the reason
[raison] for each of them. And if it
is strictly
limited to the psychic, if it gives
up looking
for a conditioning of them in the ensemble
of the universe, it shows that the
reason
liaison] for our acts is in ourselves:
we
act as we are, and our acts contribute
to
making us. 1
Sartre himself thus finds a kind of
psychological
determinism "more human"
tan a
philosophy which would be unable to
distinguish
freedom from chance. The random swervings
of an Epicurean atom are not "human"
precisely because they are meaningless
and
inexplicable.
In this essay, I hope to show that
Sartre’s
philosophy of freedom is a much more
subtle
defense of libertarianism than is generally
supposed. It offers an analysis of
the intentional
character of action and choice which
provides
both an argument against determinism
and
a theory of the "fundamental project"
which purports to distinguish freedom
from
chance. But in both cases, I will argue,
the attempt is not wholly successful.
Determinism
is not decisively refuted and, in spite
of
the many important distinctions made
in the
course of the argument, Sartrean freedom
is not ultimately distinguishable from
chance.
The theory of the uncaused "fundamental
project" is no better able to
account
for freedom and responsibility than
is the
determinism adopted by so many of those
"worthy
thinkers" to whom Sartre refers.
But
before turning directly to the philosophy
of Sartre, it will be useful to give
a somewhat
more precise characterization of the
psychological
determinism that he rejects.
I
What all forms of psychological determinism
have in common are two claims:
first, that all human actions and choices
are causally determined; and second,
that
in giving a causal account of human
actions
and choices, psychological factors
must be
taken into account. The motives, the
desires,
the beliefs, and, ultimately the character
of the agent play a decisive role in
the
causation of the act.
These claims may be illustrated as
follows.
Pierre Bezukhov has just slapped Dolokhov
and challenged him to a duel. We want
to
know why. The answer given by the society
gossips of Moscow is that Pierre believes
Dolokhov has been sleeping with his
beautiful
but unchaste wife, that he has been
dishonored,
and that the only way to right matters
is
to challenge Dolokhov. Cooler heads
counsel
restraint—Dolokhov has a fearsome reputation
as a duelist—but the impetuous and
headstrong
Pierre refuses to take their advice.
An explanation such as this may lack
psychological
profundity. But it is readily intelligible
and it includes just what a psychological
determinist would want included: viz.,
some
reference to the desires of the agent
("Pierre
wants to defend his honor"), to
his
beliefs about the objective situation
and
about the means to satisfy his desires
("Pierre believes that Dolokhov
has
been sleeping with his wife and he
believes
that a duel will restore his honor
in the
eyes of the world"), and, finally,
to
the character of the agent ("Pierre
is impetuous and headstrong").
What
the psychological determinist contends
is
that these and other facts about Pierre
and
the objective situation in which he
finds
himself provide a causal explanation
of his
behavior. Given these desires, these
beliefs,
this character, and this objective
situation,
Pierre is causally determined to do
just
what he does do: viz., to slap Dolokhov
in
the face and challenge him to a duel.
These
conditions, psychological factors prominent
among them, are causally sufficient
to produce
just this act and to preclude any act
that
would be inconsistent with it. Given
these
conditions, Pierre could not have done
otherwise.
Of course, it is still possible to
ask why
Pierre had just these desires and these
beliefs.
A psychological determinist is likely
to
refer both to facts about his character,
i. e., the characteristic ways in which
he
responds to various situations ("Pierre
has a quick temper," "He
is easily
insulted," "He is gullible")
and to the way in which his character
has
been formed: perhaps Pierre was made
to feel
all too keenly the fact of his illegitimacy;
perhaps he simply "inherited"
his
father’s iron will.
Whatever factors are deemed relevant,
a psychological
determinist may be expected to insist
that
there is always some such explanation
and
that it is a causal explanation. Given
just
those causal conditions, Pierre could
not
have had a different character. He
did not,
at any rate, freely choose to form
his character
in just this way. He didn’t create
his character
any more than he chose to be born.
Pierre’s
character was formed by conditions
outside
his control, conditions with which
he had
nothing to do. To have created his
character,
Pierre would have had to exist before
he
existed. He would have had to choose
his
lot as a soul in the Myth of Er chooses
to
be born as a king or a tradesman.
Three final remarks will serve to round
out
our characterization of psychological
determinism.
First, in my attempt to lay out the
basic
tenets of any "psychological"
form
of determinism, I am not presupposing
any
particular analysis of the relation
of cause
and effect. I am assuming only that,
whatever
the analysis, there will be a sense
in which,
the cause being given, the effect cannot
fail to be or occur: the agent could
not
do otherwise.
Second, I take any form of psychological
determinism to be a doctrine which
could
be true even if "universal determinism"—i.
e., the view that every event and every
state-of-affairs
has a cause—were false. Even if there
are
events in the "history" of
the
universe without any cause—even if,
for example,
an alpha particle just happens by chance
to "tunnel out" of the nucleus
of a particular uranium atom at a particular
time—every human act might be such
that its
occurrence is determined by prior causes.
Finally, it is important to emphasize
that
psychological determinism is psychological
determinism. There need be no question
here
of eliminating "mentalistic"
concepts
from the description of human action
or of
giving a "reductionistic"
analysis
which would replace talk about desires,
beliefs,
motives, reasons, and character traits
with
talk about physical processes—brain
events
and the like. A psychological determinist
may even claim—many have— that a bodily
movement
is not an act at all unless the desires
of
the agent figure prominently among
its causes.
In any case, it is important to remember
that we are not here considering a
mechanistic
form of determinism. So far from being
ruled
out, concepts like "intention"
and "purpose" are considered
essential
to the description of action.
II
With this brief account of psychological
determinism in mind, we can turn directly
to Sartre’s philosophy of freedom.
Sartre
will hold: (1) that psychological determinism
is incompatible with human freedom
and responsibility;
(2) that psychological determinism
is false;
and (3) that we are free and responsible
agents.
First, the incompatibility thesis.
Sartre
does not so much argue, as take it
for granted,
that a free act cannot be causally
determined.
And it is not hard to see why. If psychological
determinism is true, there must be
a very
strong sense in which we never can
do anything
other than what we actually do; so
that it
is no more true to say of a man that
he could
have done otherwise than to say of
a pane
of glass that it could have avoided
breaking,
although it did in fact break. Of course
it is not less true. The pane of glass
would
not have broken if a brick had not
been hurled
directly at it. And similarly, a man
would
have acted differently if his desires,
his
beliefs, or his character had been
different.
But that, I feel certain Sartre would
say,
has no more tendency to show that the
man
is free and responsible than that the
pane
of glass is responsible for the fact
that
it was broken. If Sartre had been a
determinist,
I feel certain that he would have been
a
"hard" determinist.
But Sartre is not a determinist. A
belief
in psychological determinism, he thinks,
is one of several devices we use to
hide
our absolute freedom from ourselves,
to suppress
the anguished awareness of the fact
that
we could have been, and can still be,
radically
different. On the other hand, Sartre
is not
a simple indeterminist. He does deny
that
human acts and choices are causally
determined;
but at the same time he insists that
they
have another kind of explanation. Simple
indeterminism would leave out just
what—for
Sartre—is essential to an action, viz.,
its
intentional character. "It is
strange,"
Sartre writes, "that philosophers
have
been able to argue endlessly about
determinism
and free-will . . . without attempting
first
to make explicit the structures contained
in the very idea of an action."2
To
act, Sartre tells us, is to bring about
a
change in the world. But it is also
to do
so for the sake of an end: every act
is intentional
in that it is animated by the conscious
project
of an end for the sake of which the
act is
performed. Obviously the end, if it
is an
end, is not yet realized. If the war
is already
won, the battle loses its point. I
might
fight to preserve what has been won,
but
the very preservation which is my end
refers
us to a future which has not yet arrived,
a future in which the territory gained
would
be held. Even if I act for the sake
of an
end which is already realized and which
does
not need to be preserved (e. g., if
I try
to kill an enemy soldier who is already
dead),
it can only be because I believe that
the
goal has not been achieved and because
I
intend to realize the goal by my act.
But don’t we sometimes do things unintentionally?
In a sense, yes—our acts frequently,
perhaps
always, have unintended consequences.
Sartre
would insist only that every genuine
action
(as opposed to a mere chance happening)
is
performed for some reason. The careless
smoker
who blows up the powder magazine does
not
do so intentionally, but he does do
something
intentionally—he throws away his cigarette.
From this claim—that every act is in
some
respect intentional—Sartre believes
it follows
that there is no act without a reason
and
a motive. Thus, "at the outset,"
he tells us:
we can see what is lacking in those
tedious
discussions between determinists and
the
proponents of free will. The latter
are concerned
to find cases of decision for which
there
exists no prior reason, or deliberations
concerning two opposed acts which are
equally
possible and possess reasons of exactly
the
same weight. To which the determinist
may
easily reply that there is no action
without
a reason and that the most insignificant
gesture (raising the right hand rather
than
the left hand, etc.) refers to reasons
and
motives which confer its meaning upon
it.
Indeed the case could not be otherwise
since
every action must be intentional; each
action
must, in fact, have an end, and the
end in
turn is referred to a reason. 3
On the unreflected level I bring Peter
help
because Peter is experienced as "having
to be helped." But if my state
is suddenly
transformed into a reflected state,
there
I am watching myself act, in the sense
in
which one says of oneself that he listens
to himself talk. It is no longer Peter
who
attracts me; it is my helpful consciousness
which appears to me as having to be
perpetuated.
6
We all know the difference between
simply
acting and watching ourselves act.
Sartre’s
assertion that consciousness is always
self-conscious
does not deny this difference. What
he is
claiming is only that, even when I
am not
explicitly aware of my action, I have
an
implicit sense of what I am doing which
guides
my activity. In some cases, thinking
explicitly
about my doing may even make me that
much
less effective in doing it. If I think
about
my desire to help Peter and about my
efforts
in his behalf, instead of thinking
about
Peter and the ways in which he can
best be
helped, I am that much less likely
to succeed
in helping Peter. But even when I am
straightforwardly
involved in helping Peter, I am not
simply
ignorant of what I am doing; I have
an implicit
sense of what I am about, of the point
of
doing this or that, of my ends and
my motives.
It is this implicit sense of my choices
of
means and ends that Sartre terms "non-thetic
self-consciousness."
If, then, there is a sense in which
I always
know what I am about, if I am aware
of the
choices which guide my behavior, this
need
not be an explicit awareness. In the
case
of some projects, most notably what
Sartre
calls the "fundamental project,"
it may even be extremely difficult
for me
to articulate them to myself or to
others.
In one sense of "know," I
may not
know what my project is. It may take
prolonged
existential psychoanalysis to bring
me to
an explicit recognition of my fundamental
choice of myself. I will return to
this point
later, for it is crucial to Sartre’s
theory
of freedom and his claim that the will
is
only one of the manifestations of freedom.
For the present, it will help us understand
a distinction of which Sartre makes
a great
deal, but which has not been emphasized
in
the preceding discussion: the distinction,
namely, between motive and reason.
Both motive and reason, we said, are
constituted
as such by the free project which makes
the
act intentional, i. e., makes it an
act.
The distinction between them is the
distinction
between consciousness and its object;
between
the subjective motive and the objective
reason;
between consciousness itself in so
far as
"it experiences itself non-thetically
as a project more or less keen, more
or less
passionate, toward an end,"7 and
the
object of consciousness in so far as
it is
experienced in the light of that freely
projected
end as a reason for acting. To revert
to
a previous example, I see Peter’s distress
as a reason for helping him only in
so far
as my present consciousness non-thetically
apprehends itself in the light of my
project
of helping. I am thetically aware of
"Peter
having to be helped" and non-thetically
aware of my project of helping. Motive
and
reason are distinct, but correlative,
moments
of the same structure.
[T]he reason, the motive, and the end
are
the three indissoluble terms of the
thrust
of a free and living consciousness
which
projects itself toward its possibilities
and makes itself defined by these possibilities
~
II
Now we can turn to Sartre’s argument
against
psychological determinism. What is
essential
to the argument is the claim, elaborated
above, that every act is—at least to
some
degree—intentional. However successful
or
unsuccessful I may be in the attainment
of
my ends, my act is intentionally directed
to an end which is not yet actual.
It is
this "negative" aspect of
the act
to which Sartre appeals in his argument
against
determinism. An act cannot be determined
by an antecedent cause precisely because
it involves the project of an end which
is
not yet realized. In a characteristic
passage,
Sartre puts the argument as follows:
No factual state whatever It may be
(the
political and economic structure of
society,
the psychological "state,"
etc.)
is capable by itself of motivating
any act
whatsoever. For an act is a projection
of
the for-itself toward what is not,
and what
is can in no way by itself determine
what
is not. 9
The argument appears to have two premises:
1. An act is (in part) a "projection
... toward what is not." and
2. ". . . [W]hat is can in no
way by
itself determine what is not."
The conclusion:
3. No factual state ("what is")
can causally determine an action.
Now quite apart from a certain obscurity,
the argument appears to be fallacious.
Granted
that what is cannot causally determine
what
is not, it doesn’t follow that what
is cannot
determine the projecting (the intending)
of what is not. The projecting (intending)
of an end is perfectly real, even if
the
end projected is not yet real. Even
if we
accept Sartre’s premises, therefore,
it seems
that we need not accept his conclusion:
that
we need not deny that our acts with
their
intentions are causally determined.
The argument
appears to rest on a confusion between
the
intention and what is intended, between
consciousness
and its object. The former belongs
to the
domain of "what is" even
if the
latter does not. Such a confusion is
so unlikely
in the case of a phenomenologist, particularly
in that of a phenomenologist who makes
as
much of the "intentionality"
of
consciousness as does Sartre, that
we may
feel that Sartre couldn’t possibly
mean what
he appears to be saying in the passage
quoted
above. In fact, I believe, this feeling
is
justified.
I think what Sartre had in mind in
this passage
is that no purely factual state of
affairs
can determine a conscious being to
apprehend
it as a reason for acting in one way
rather
than another. Why? Because to apprehend
the
objective situation as a reason for
acting,
for bringing about a change in the
world,
is to apprehend it as lacking in a
certain
respect. It is to apprehend it as a
situation
in which a desirable end is not yet
realized.
But the objective situation does not
and
cannot evaluate itself in the light
of what
is not, cannot constitute itself as
lacking
in any respect.
… the most beautiful girl in. the world
can
offer only what she has, and in the
same
way the most miserable situation can
by itself
be designated only as it is without
any reference
to an ideal nothingness. 10
Any such evaluation can come only from
a
conscious being who freely interprets
the
situation in the light of an end which
it
freely projects for itself. So while
the
objective situation ("what is")
may be the reason for acting in a certain
way, it is so only in the light of
a freely
chosen end. By itself it has no causal
efficacy.
It cannot cause us to apprehend it
in one
way rather than another. The act, therefore,
since the intention of what is not
yet actual
belongs to its structure as an act,
cannot
be causally determined by the objective
situation,
by "what is."
The foregoing will serve as an argument
against
psychological determinism, however,
only
in the context of the entire Sartrean
ontology.
It does make explicit one of the central
assumptions of that ontology, viz.,
that
conscious beings are related to the
world
of which they are conscious in a way
which
makes them free and incapable of being
causally
determined by that world of which they
are
conscious. Sartre is assuming that
nothing
(of which consciousness is conscious,
at
any rate) can cause us to choose in
one way
rather than another.
But even if we make that assumption,
the
following question still arises: viz.,
are
the objects of which I am thetically
aware
and which constitute my reasons for
acting,
the only candidates for causing my
action?
Might not something of which I am only
non-thetically
aware, or of which I am not conscious
at
all, cause me to choose as I do and
to act
in the light of the ends that I choose?
The
facts about subliminal advertising
and post-hypnotic
suggestion spring to mind as cases
of just
such unconscious (or implicitly conscious)
influences.
The lesson, of course, is not that
Sartre’s
theory of freedom is erroneous or that
psychological
determinism is true. The lesson is
only that
Sartre has failed to demonstrate that
psychological
determinism is false.
IV
Let us then turn directly to Sartre’s
positive
account of the free choice. The position,
as I have elaborated it thus far, is
that
our acts are neither chance happenings
nor
causally determined events. Not chance
happenings,
because every act has its reason and
its
motive. Not causally determined events,
because
reason and motive are constituted as
such
by the free choice of an end.
The problem which I want to discuss
here
is this: does this analysis of the
concept
of an action suffice to distinguish
freedom
from chance? True, we have found it
possible
to answer the question, "Why this
act
rather than another?" without
resorting
to talk of causal determination by
antecedent
conditions. But we must also ask, "Why
this choice rather than another?"
If
there is no answer, or if the answer
is "no
reason," then the freedom of the
choice
has been exposed as mere chance. But
if there
is a reason, we must ask what makes
it a
reason. Is it constituted as a reason
in
the light of a higher order choice
of an
end? But then we must ask with regard
to
that choice: could I have chosen otherwise?
And if so, why did I make this choice
rather
than some other? It might appear at
this
point that, in order to avoid the Scylla
of chance, Sartre must perpetually
refer
each choice to a reason, and in order
to
avoid the Charybdis of causal determination,
he must refer each reason to the free
choice
of an end. Are we then faced with an
infinite
regress? An infinite regress of choices
motivated
by reasons constituted as reasons by
higher
order choices motivated by reasons
and choices
of a yet higher order? No, says Sartre.
The
attempt to understand why someone has
acted
in a certain way culminates in the
recognition
of a choice for which no reason can
be given,
but which is not a mere matter of chance
because it is "fundamental."
In
the light of this choice, a human life
appears
as a coherent whole, but there is no
larger
whole in terms of which this choice
is to
be understood. When addressed to this
choice,
the question "Why?" cannot
be answered.
But that is not inimical to freedom
and responsibility
because the question is in some sense
inappropriate.
Thus we arrive at Sartre’s famous theory
of the "original choice"
or the
"fundamental project." The
problem
for a positive, Sartrean account of
freedom
is to say what a fundamental project
is and
to explain why it is inappropriate
at this
"fundamental" level to ask
the
question, "Why this project and
not
some other?"
What, then, is a "fundamental
project?"
For Sartre, every fundamental project
is
an attempt to solve the insoluble "problem
of being," to realize the impossible
synthesis of the in-itself and the
for-itself,
to achieve the security of something
which
merely is what it is, while retaining
the
freedom of the being whose being is
perpetually
in question. Important as this claim
is in
Sartre’s system as a whole, it is not
crucial
to our question about responsibility.
What
is important for our question is that
each
fundamental project is a concrete,
but global
choice of my being in the world. If
I do
choose the impossible synthesis of
the in-itself
and the for-itself as my value, I will
strive
to realize that value in a particular
way.
Thus:
"I will make myself be the thief
that
others have made of me." Or: "I
will make myself be the one who subjects
everyone and everything to critical
scrutiny."
Or:
"I will make myself be the one
who saves
the world." Or: "I will make
myself
be the rejected son that I am."
The
possibilities are infinite. But whichever
I choose, if it is indeed my "original"
choice, my "fundamental"
project,
then it should illuminate each of my
acts.
They should make sense in the light
of my
original choice of myself. We should
be able
to say, at the conclusion of our analysis,
"Yes, that is what he—i. e., the
one
who makes this original choice of himself-would
do in this situation; that, or something
very like it." The qualification,
"or
something like it," is important
because
Sartre has no wish to say that, given
my
original choice of myself and given
the situation
in which I find myself, I could not
help
doing exactly what I do—e. g., using
just
this piece of chalk to write just this
word
on the blackboard. No, the relation
between
the fundamental project and those choices
which are subsidiary to it is comparable
to the relation between a Gestalt and
those
partial structures which can be altered
without
fundamentally altering the total configuration.
Each one makes sense in the context
of the
whole, but not all are infallibly required
for the preservation of the Gestalt.
One
might say, in line with this analogy,
that
the particular choice is made more
or less
probable by the global one, but that
it is
not necessitated by it. There is, in
the
last analysis, a certain amount of
room for
free play. Some responses to the situation
are open to me and some are not open,
or
at least are very unlikely. The act
is not
therefore a chance happening—given
my fundamental
project and the situation in which
I found
myself, something of the sort had to
be done.
But neither is it necessitated: I could
have
done something else which would have
been
equally compatible with my fundamental
project.
It must be emphasized that the fundamental
project, and not only the acts that
it explains,
is free. I could have chosen, and I
still
can choose myself in a wholly different
way.
As long as I exist, I am defined, not
only
by what I have been and done, but also
by
what I can still do, by my possibilities
for change—even total and radical change.
The possibility of complete conversion
is
never finally ruled out. Anxiety, said
Kierkegaard,
is "the next day." In anguish,
I recognize that I may not keep the
appointment
that I have made with myself for tomorrow.
Not that death or illness or a sudden
accident
may prevent me, although these things
too
are possible. It is rather that I cannot
count on myself; tomorrow I may choose
myself
in a radically different way. I am
perpetually
"threatened" by the possibility,
Sartre says at one point, of being
"exorcised,"1’
of being, in effect, changed into another
person, a person with a radically different
fundamental project, a person that
I would
perhaps despise were I to meet him
today.
Most of the time we seek to escape
this anguish,
this consciousness of our freedom,
by adopting
one or another attitude in "bad
faith."
A belief in psychological determinism
may
excuse me or a belief in a God who
has established
absolute values may appear to justify
me.
But the truth which I carry within
me as
the anguished sense of my own freedom
is
that I am unjustified and without excuse.
V
Do we now have a positive conception
of freedom
which suffices to distinguish it from
mere
chance? The fundamental project has
been
found to be the ultimate locus of freedom;
and we have been told, in effect, that
this
project is unjustifiable and inexplicable.
What, then, distinguishes it from a
chance
happening? Does not the very description
of anguish suggest that I am not the
author
of the choice? It is as if I were threatened
with having a choice made for me by
someone
else.
There are at least two ways in which
Sartre
might respond to this challenge. First,
he
repeatedly insists that I am my fundamental
project. The project does not come
from without;
I do not have this choice—I am this
choice,
perpetually making and remaking itself.
To
this it is tempting to reply: "In
that
case, there is no real sense in which
you
could have chosen differently; had
you done
so, you would not be you, but someone
else."
Such a response is surely invited by
Sartre’s
description of anguish as the fear
of being
exorcised. But in spite of that, it
is not
hard to imagine how Sartre might reply.
"The
objection," he might say, "confuses
the mode of being of the for-itself
with
that of the in-itself. When I say that
I
am my fundamental project, I do not
mean
that I am it in the manner of a thing
which
is limited to being what it is. I am
also
not it; i. e., I am also the possibility
ot radically changing myself; it is
this
possibility which is experienced in
anguish.
So there is no contradiction in saying
that
I. defined by this project, might choose
a new project. I am already defined
by the
potentiality of other choices."
Let us assume, for the sake of argument,
that Sartre can answer the objection
when
cast in this form. The choice is not
something
that happens to me; it, along my potentialities
for change, is what I am. Even so,
someone
may still want to ask: why did you
make this
choice? Did you choose yourself in
this fundamental
way for no reason? Then is it not a
mere
matter of chance that you did so? This
brings
us to the second of Sartre’s responses
to
our challenge. "Chance,"
he might
say, "is not merely the absence
of explanation—it
is the absence of explanation where
we have
a right to ask for one. But in this
sense
my fundamental project is not a mere
matter
of chance; it is the condition of the
very
possibility of explanations, the condition
of the possibility of anything counting
as
a reason for or against a particular,
non-fundamental
choice. The free, fundamental project
cannot
meaningfully be said to be a matter
of chance
just because it is fundamental."
I think
Heidegger had something like this in
mind
when he wrote that the essence of reasons
(or grounds) is freedom. And Sartre
may well
have been thinking of Heidegger’s essay,
Von Wesen des Grundes, when he wrote
the
following:
This choice is not absurd in the sense
in
which in a rational universe a phenomenon
might arise which would not be bound
to others
by any reasons. It is absurd in this
sense—that
the choice is that by which all foundations
come into being, that by which the
very notion
of the absurd has a meaning. It is
absurd
in being beyond all reasons.’2
Two sense of "absurdity"
are distinguished
here. In one sense of the word, an
event
would be "absurd" if it is
a matter
of chance relative to a certain rational
order. And Sartre is saying that the
fundamental
project cannot be absurd in this sense
because
it is the condition of the possibility
of
any rational order at all. It cannot
be a
matter of chance, because at this,
fundamental
level of analysis, there is no rational
order
to contrast it with, no causes or reasons
or grounds of any kind to appeal to
for an
answer to the question, "Why this
choice
and not some other?" This choice
is
itself the original reason or ground.
It is important to see that in the
present
sense of the word, "reasons"
are
grounds or explanations of any kind.
If we
admitted that there are grounds or
"foundations"
of any kind in things as they are independently
of the fundamental project, then it
would
be meaningful even at this level of
analysis
to ask why I chose in this original
way;
and it would be meaningful to ask whether
my original choice of myself occurs
merely
by chance. We would be faced with our
original
dilemma: either there is an explanation,
in which case we want to know what
kind of
explanation it is and whether having
an explanation
in that sense is compatible with freedom
and responsibility; or my original
choice
of myself is a mere matter of chance,
in
which case I am certainly not responsible
for it. Doubtless this is the reason
for
the Sartrean move under consideration—viz.,
that of placing the fundamental project
"beyond
reasons," making it a condition
of the
possibility of reasons or grounds of
any
kind, making it "that by which
all foundations
come into being." In my view,
this "move"
leads to an unacceptable form of idealism.
It makes my conscious project the author
of everything but the sheer being of
things,
and not only of my deeds. And it makes
it
difficult, if not impossible to distinguish
between reality and appearance. It
is difficult
to see how so "radical" a
freedom
could be limited in any way, how there
could
be such a thing as "facticity."’3
Whether I am right about this or not,
it
is interesting to note that in the
passage
quoted above, Sartre distinguishes
a second
sense of "absurdity," a sense
in
which the fundamental project is absurd.
It is absurd, he says, in being "beyond
all reasons." In much the same
vein
Sartre repeatedly declares that we
are "unjustified"
in our very being. It is not as if
there
were any justification to be found.
There
is none. And, indeed, if Sartre is
right
in averring that the being which would
found
its being is impossible, there could
be none.
It has been well said that Sartre is
a disappointed
rationalist. He tacitly asks the very
question
that his own philosophy forbids him
to ask:
why this fundamental project and not
some
other? It is only if I ask that question
that I experience myself as unjustified.
Similarly, it is only if I demand an
explanation
of the existence of anything at all
that
I experience the absurdity and brute
contingency
of existence in what Sartre describes
as
"nausea." If the demand itself
is meaningless, then the failure of
ourselves
and the world to satisfy it should
not disappoint
us. Anguish and nausea are based on
a misunderstanding
and man is not a "useless passion."
Much of what is characteristic of Sartre’s
existentialism is lost. But if the
demand
is not meaningless, Sartrean freedom
is indistinguishable
from chance and we are no more responsible
for our acts than we would be if psychological
determinism were true.
I do not count myself among those who
find
"unanswerable questions"
meaningless
or without point, which is as much
as to
say that I too am a "disappointed
rationalist."
But that is not the issue here. What
1 want
to do in conclusion is simply to point
out
how very far the Sartrean conception
of freedom
is from our ordinary notions about
deliberation
and choice.
It is at least often the case that
when we
speak about free-will we are thinking
of
a decision which issues from a process
of
deliberation in which several alternatives
are considered and rejected. But deliberation,
and the fully conscious choice which
I can
articulate to myself and to others
are but
surface phenomena in Sartre’s scheme
of things.
In the ordinary course of an ordinary
life,
choice is only non-thetically conscious
of
itself as choice, and there is not
any explicit
awareness of what could have been chosen
instead. Deliberation and the act of
will
which issues from it are not a privileged
expression of freedom. It is only in
the
light of a choice which is already
implicitly
made that the motives and reasons about
which
I deliberate have their weight. The
deliberate,
voluntary act is no more—but also no
less—an
expression of freedom than the hasty
and
ill-considered act ofpassion. The true
locus
of freedom is a choice which is scarcely
ever explicitly aware of itself. This
is
why Sartre writes:
When the will intervenes, the decision
is
taken, and it has no other value than
that
of making the announcement.’4
For similar reasons, Sartre holds that
I
can always surprise myself with deeds
which
are wholly out of keeping with my self-image.
The ego, after all, is in his view
a mere
fiction which I construct for myself
only
on the plane of reflection, a fiction
which
enables me to escape the awareness
of my
own freedom and responsibility. If
the young
bride cited by Janet is afraid of sitting
at her window and summoning the passersby
like a prostitute, this is not merely
because
of something in her education or her
past.
What she is experiencing, Sartre tells
us,
is
a "vertigo of possibility."
She
finds herself monstrously free, and
this
vertiginous freedom appeared to her
as the
opportunity for this action which she
was
afraid of doing.’
At this point, ordinary reflective
consciousness,
with its comforting sense of a permanent
self which serves as a guarantee for
my future
behavior, gives way. I experience myself
as "monstrously free," as
"escaping"
from myself "on all sides."’6
At
one point in The Transcendence of the
Ego,
Sartre even speaks of my spontaneous
choice
as something "beyond freedom!"’7
It is, at any rate, quite beyond our
ordinary
notions about free-will, so that in
the last
analysis Sartrean freedom seems indistinguishable
from a random series of inexplicable
choices—a
notion which, as we noted earlier,
Sartre
himself takes to be less "human"
than the psychological determinism
that he
rejects.
But the failure of Sartre’s theory
is instructive,
for there is a lesson to be drawn from
its
difficulties, a lesson concerning the
nature
of choice. it is that, as Sartre concedes
with regard to every choice save the
fundamental
one, there is no such thing as a choice
which
is completely or in principle inexplicable.
Every choice essentially involves an
appeal
to the values of the chooser—to what
he takes
to be good, right, proper, desirable,
or
at least in some very broad sense worth
doing.
It is doubtful whether I can simply
choose
to value anything. If, for example,
I see
no point in the generous impulse of
a philanthropist,
I cannot simply "decide"
to find
it praiseworthy. But even if I could,
I would
have to do so in the light of values,
preferences,
or standards which I did not at the
same
time call into question. I cannot at
one
stroke bring all reasons into being.
If there
is something like Sartre’s "fundamental
project," if there is some one
central
theme which brings together the varied
strands
of my life in a meaningful pattern,
it is
not a project that I choose. Precisely
because
it is the ultimate explanation of all
my
choices, it is not itself a choice.
But a
fundamental project which is not a
choice
could not be the ultimate locus of
freedom
in a libertarian philosophy. For it
would
not be so very different from what
the psychological
determinist calls "character"—a
given for which a man cannot justly
be held
responsible.
University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado
NOTES
1 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness,
tr. by Hazel Barnes (New York: Philosophical
Library, 1956), pp. 452—453. Hereafter
cited
as BN.
2 BN. p. 433.
3 BN, p. 436. Here and throughout the
paper,
I have rendered Sartre’s "motif’
as
"reason" rather than "cause."
This is the only point on which I have
not
followed the Barnes translation.
4 BN, p. 437.
5 BN pp. 437—438.
6 Sartre, Jean-Paul, The Transcendence
of
the Ego, tr. by Forrest Williams and
Robert
Kirkpatrick (New York: Noonday, 1957),
p.
59. Hereafter cited as TE.
7 BN, p. 449.
8 BN, p. 449.
9 BN, p. 435.
10 BN, p. 434.
11 BN, p. 475.
12 BN, p. 479.
13 I tried to make this point at greater
length in an earlier paper—"Heidegger
on the World’— published in Man and
World.
Volume 5, No. 4, pp. 453—467.
14 BN p. 451.
15 TE, p. 100.
16 TE, p. 100
17 TE, p. 100.
|
Evans Experientialism 
