For our symposium this week we discussed three philosophers: Sartre, Nietzsche and Marx. One philosopher that I enjoyed reading about the most was Sarte. I enjoyed reading his take on freedom and the idea that despite how an individual may feel there is no way their freedom can be taken from them. He states that even when we feel like we do not have a choice in a particular decision there is still a choice. We are just choosing not to do anything. I feel that this particular stance while interesting is also conflicting depending on certain scenarios. For instance, say you are a instructor and you dislike your job because you are no longer happy with it. You would like to quit and move on but you can not because this is your means of surviving. So because you can not just quit you feel stuck and hopeless because you are “trapped”. Sartre argues that you are lying to yourself. (Sartre refers to as “bad faith”) By lying to yourself Sartre says you are making the choice to remain where you are rather than bettering your situation. However, I do not feel that this theory can be applied to all scenarios and would disagree with Sartre. I do not feel that we are always able to make a choice in certain situations because some may be impossible. For example, what if you get laid off from your job and as much as you try to find another job you can not. The idea that Sartre says that there is no aspect in your life where you are not free to make a choice seems almost unfair. It is not like you are responsible for being laid off. You aren’t just sitting around for a job to come to you. You have exhausted all the means to better your situation and have come up with nothing. So, I would say that it seems unfair to say that there is never a time in our lives when we are unfree.
I agree that his philosophy can be conflicting because there are things in life that we can't control. But at the same time we are free to do what we want.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it is conflicting. Although you are at will to choose to do whatever you want, there are laws and things made so that society stays in order and if you choose to break the law, you will be punished and face the consequences of your actions in prison (if that extreme).
ReplyDeleteI agree that sometimes there can be hard situations but you will always have the choice between trying to better the situation or giving up.
ReplyDeletei agree that there are instances where you cannot control your faith. I also agree that there are times where you do not have a choice in a situation, like getting laid off, but you could make a project for yourself to pursue another job.
ReplyDeleteI agree that someone always has a choice but you are correct in saying that you cannot apply it to all situations. Sometimes there really is no way out of a situation and no matter what choice you make it won't make your life any better. Unfortunately some people would use the "absolutely-no-choice" option to their advantage but for others I'd understand if they couldn't make a choice.
ReplyDeleteAs Sartre says, it is a burden to have the knowledge of this freedom that we have to choose anything in life. Yet, I have to agree with Nadia, some things in life are surely not in your control. I guess what we have the freedom to do is choose how we react to things that happen to us. Certainly, we do not have freedom in choosing what happens to our health, while there are some choices to be made such as not smoking, eating well, exercise, some things are genetic. So, while many things are a matter of freedom, some things are out of our control.
ReplyDelete