Sartre on Freedom and Choice

This is to make-up the symposium missed on Friday, April 10th for a tennis match.

Sartre is the most interesting philosopher to me that we have read about so far this semester. While I disagree with his beliefs of atheism, I rather like some of the things that he says about freedom and choice. Sartre says that we ARE the choices that we make. He says we can’t not choose, in a sense. That if we decide in a situation not to choose then that in actuality is our choice! He says that if we are faced with a problem that has inevitable circumstances that we will still choose how we act in said situation. This is a very interesting thought to me as I think about decisions that I make. We are free human beings and we can make whatever choices we want in any given situation. Life in itself is really just a long catalog of all the choices that we make. 

Another concept that Sartre brings forward is that just as we are free, we are continually changing. For instance a ‘coward’ is simply a person that is acting cowardly at a given time. Each choice or action that we take defines who we are so we are all subject to change. If we commit a brave action, then suddenly we are ‘brave’. This is true freedom in my opinion. Everyone is free; everyone can make choices and decide who they want to be in any given situation. “We have the power of transforming ourselves indefinitely.”