Sartre Notes - From Prof. King's Lecture

A few people had some questions about the role of God in Sartre's theory. I'm going to clarify a bit using what Prof. King talked about in lecture.

For Sartre, there are no objective values. Sartre puts this together with his atheism but he says that to be an existentialist, it’s really not a prerequisite to be an atheist. (Even if God existed, it would make no difference, according to Sartre). Rather, one has to accept that nothing can save one from oneself. Remember how Freud says that the meaning of life stands and falls with the existence of God?

Prof. King drew a distinction: suppose you think life has meaning because it has a purpose. You can think of this either as purpose being an objective thought, or not. One way to claim that you have an objective purpose is by recourse to God. This is objective because you can discover this: you are a made creature, and this has certain consequences. For example, because God gave us life, we can’t suicide because God doesn’t want us to. That is, many religions believe that God has a plan for us.

SO Sartre’s final claim here (That if god existed it would make no difference) shows that for him, there’s something wrong with the big picture: that there is a God who has a purpose for us. But what’s wrong with that picture (that you have purposes given to you in life) is that some other being can impose purposes on you. This is what goes wrong: the only goal, purpose, value we need to recognize are those we accept for ourselves. For example: your parents raised you up, they looked after you – does that mean they can tell you how to live your life? NO! There’s a point where no matter what their expectations are for you, you don’t have to adopt this just because they want you to adopt it. This is called “growing up” – and this is an indication that even if someone raises you, it doesn’t mean they can tell you what to do forever.

Same goes with God. Even if God has a purpose for you doesn’t mean you should accept it. I could accept it, but if I do it’s up to me. Just because someone has a plan in mind for me doesn’t mean I have to agree. Because of this, it doesn’t matter whether you are a theist or atheist – either way, there’s a question why you should take any other being’s purposes for you seriously. There may even be so-called objective purposes – but even this doesn’t settle what you have to do with yourself. This is why you start with the SUBJECT, with the individual person who has to decide what to do.