Sartre's Existentialism Is a Humanism: Freedom, Responsibility, and the Making of YourselfLink Copied

Imagine waking up tomorrow with a sudden, visceral realization: there is no cosmic plan for your life. No divine blueprint. No fate written in the stars. No human nature that determines what you must become. You are free. Radically, terrifyingly, exhilaratingly free.

What do you do next?

This is the question Jean-Paul Sartre forces upon us in his 1946 lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism. He delivered it to a packed room in Paris just months after the liberation of France. The lecture became one of the most influential philosophical texts of the twentieth century, not because it introduced new ideas, but because it made existentialism accessible to anyone willing to confront the consequences of genuine freedom.

Sartre's message is simple to state and difficult to live: you are what you make of yourself, and you cannot blame anyone or anything else for who you become. There are no excuses. There is no escape from responsibility. This, Sartre insists, is not a counsel of despair but the only foundation for authentic human dignity.

To understand Existentialism Is a Humanism, we need to understand what Sartre was defending against. By 1946, existentialism had become fashionable in Parisian cafés, associated with black turtlenecks, jazz, and a vague sense of artistic rebellion. But it had also attracted fierce criticism from multiple directions.

The Communists attacked existentialism as bourgeois navel-gazing, a philosophy of individual angst that ignored the material conditions of class struggle and offered no basis for collective action. If everyone creates their own values, how can we build solidarity? How can we condemn exploitation as objectively wrong?

The Catholics attacked it as godless nihilism. Without God, they argued, everything is permitted. Existentialism strips away moral foundations and leaves us with nothing but subjective preferences dressed up as philosophy.

Conservative critics saw it as an ugly philosophy that dwelt on human misery, bad faith, and the sordid aspects of existence while ignoring beauty, nobility, and transcendence.

Even fellow travelers worried that existentialism's emphasis on radical freedom was psychologically naive. Surely we are shaped by our upbringing, our biology, our social circumstances. The idea that we are completely free to choose ourselves seemed to ignore everything psychology and sociology had taught us.

Sartre's lecture was a direct response to these charges. He wanted to show that existentialism, properly understood, was not nihilistic but deeply humanistic. It took human dignity more seriously than any philosophy that grounded morality in God or human nature.

The core of Sartre's argument rests on a single revolutionary claim: for human beings, existence precedes essence.

Consider the difference between a paper knife and a person. A paper knife is designed before it exists. The artisan has a concept, a purpose, a function, and then creates the object to fulfill that concept. The essence (what it is for) precedes the existence (the actual knife). The same is true, Sartre notes, for those who believe in a creator God: God conceives of human nature and then creates humans to fulfill that conception. We are, on this view, like paper knives in the mind of a divine craftsman.

But what if there is no God? What if there is no artisan who conceived of us before we existed? Then there is no pre-given human nature. We simply appear in the world, we exist, and only afterward do we define ourselves through what we do.

This is not merely an abstract metaphysical point. It has immediate practical consequences. If existence precedes essence, you cannot appeal to a fixed human nature to justify your actions or excuse your failures. "I couldn't help it, that's just the way I am" becomes self-deception. "Human nature is selfish" cannot justify your selfishness. There is no "way you are" prior to the choices you make.

You are not a coward because you have a cowardly nature. You are a coward because you have acted in cowardly ways. But this means you can also become brave, not by discovering a hidden brave nature, but by acting bravely. What you are is nothing other than the sum of your actions.

Sartre identifies three fundamental experiences that arise from recognizing radical freedom: anguish, abandonment, and despair. These terms sound bleak, but Sartre insists they describe inescapable features of the human condition that we must face honestly rather than flee from.

Anguish is not mere anxiety about outcomes. It is the recognition that in choosing for myself, I am choosing for all. When I decide to marry, I implicitly affirm that marriage is a valuable human institution. When I lie, I implicitly declare that lying is acceptable human conduct. I cannot escape this universal dimension of my choices by pretending they affect only me.

Sartre illustrates this with the example of a military leader who must decide whether to send his troops into battle. He cannot hide behind orders from above. He interprets those orders, decides whether to follow them, and bears responsibility for the deaths that follow. The anguish of command is not weakness but clear-sightedness about what decision-making actually involves.

Abandonment does not mean loneliness in the ordinary sense. It means that no external source can relieve us of the burden of choice. Even if God exists, Sartre argues, we must still decide whether to obey God's commands, how to interpret them, which claimed revelations to accept. The religious person who says "God told me to do this" has still chosen to believe that voice was God's, chosen to interpret the command in a particular way, chosen to obey. The responsibility cannot be transferred.

The same applies to moral systems, social conventions, psychological drives, or political ideologies. You can follow them, but you choose to follow them. You cannot hide behind them. "I was just following orders" is the paradigmatic expression of bad faith: the attempt to deny the freedom and responsibility that define human existence.

Despair, for Sartre, is not hopelessness but the refusal of false hope. It means accepting that you cannot control how others will respond, what circumstances will arise, or whether your projects will succeed. You can only commit to your actions and accept responsibility for what depends on you.

A student who hopes to pass an exam cannot rely on hope alone, only on studying. A revolutionary who hopes for social change cannot rely on historical inevitability, only on organizing, persuading, acting. Despair is the honest acknowledgment that the future is genuinely open and that our actions are the only thing we can contribute to it.

The most famous passage in Existentialism Is a Humanism concerns a student who came to Sartre for advice during the German occupation of France. The student faced an agonizing choice: should he stay with his mother, who lived only for him and would be devastated by his departure, or should he leave to join the Free French forces and fight against the occupation?

Traditional moral frameworks offered no clear guidance. Kantian ethics told him to act according to universalizable maxims, but which maxim? "Always support your mother" and "Always fight injustice" are both universalizable. Christian ethics told him to love his neighbor, but who is his neighbor? His mother, or his compatriots suffering under occupation? Utilitarian calculations were impossible: how do you weigh the certain good he could do for his mother against the uncertain contribution he might make to the war effort?

Sartre's point is not that the student should have ignored these frameworks. No framework could make the decision for him. He had to choose, and in choosing, he would define what kind of person he was and what he valued most. The frameworks could inform his deliberation, but they could not substitute for the act of decision.

When the student asked Sartre what he should do, Sartre replied: "You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent." There is no general formula. There is only the concrete situation and the person who must decide.

This is not moral relativism. Sartre is not saying that any choice is as good as any other. He is saying that the goodness of a choice cannot be determined in advance by appeal to abstract principles. It is constituted by the commitment, authenticity, and responsibility with which the choice is made.

If we are radically free, why do so many people live as if they were not? Sartre's answer is mauvaise foi, bad faith.

Bad faith takes many forms. The waiter who performs his role so perfectly that he seems to have no existence beyond it, as if being a waiter were his fixed nature rather than a role he has chosen. The woman on a date who pretends not to notice her companion's advances, treating her hand as an inert object when he takes it, as if she had no responsibility for what happens next. The person who says "I can't help my temper" or "That's just who I am," treating their character as a given fact rather than an ongoing creation.

Bad faith is not simply lying to others. It is lying to oneself. Sartre suggests this is the default mode of human existence. We flee from the anguish of freedom into the comfort of imagined necessity. We pretend that we had to do what we did, that we had no choice, that circumstances forced our hand.

The alternative is authenticity: the clear-eyed acceptance of our freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. Authentic existence does not mean following no rules or rejecting all social roles. It means inhabiting those rules and roles with full awareness that we have chosen them and could choose otherwise. The authentic waiter serves with commitment and skill, but he knows he is not merely a waiter. He is a free being who has chosen this work and could choose to leave it.

Sartre's existentialism speaks to our contemporary moment with surprising relevance, though applying his ideas requires care and nuance.

Consider the workplace. How often do we hear, or say, "I have to do this job," "I have no choice but to follow these policies," "The system requires it"? Sartre would recognize these as expressions of bad faith. You chose this job. You choose to stay. You choose to follow the policies rather than resist or leave. This is not to say that the choice is easy or that the alternatives are attractive. The constraints are real, and for many people the costs of leaving are severe. But acknowledging that a choice exists, however constrained, is different from pretending no choice exists at all.

This recognition can be liberating. If you are not trapped by necessity, then change is possible. The organization that treats its employees badly is not a force of nature but a collection of human choices that could be made differently. The career that feels like a prison is a path you are walking and could, in principle, leave. Recognizing freedom is the precondition of meaningful action, even when action is difficult.

Consider relationships. How often do we treat our partners, friends, or family members as if they had fixed natures that explained and excused their behavior? "He's just not the romantic type." "She's always been anxious." Sartre reminds us that people are not things with fixed properties. They are ongoing projects, capable of change, responsible for who they become. To treat someone as having a fixed nature is to deny their humanity, and to deny your own responsibility for how you respond to them. This does not mean ignoring real patterns or pretending that change is easy. It means holding open the possibility of change while being honest about its difficulty.

Consider technology and artificial intelligence. As we build systems that make decisions about loans, hiring, criminal sentencing, and content moderation, we face a version of the bad faith Sartre diagnosed. "The algorithm decided." "The data showed." "The model predicted." But algorithms are designed by humans, trained on data humans collected, deployed in contexts humans chose. The responsibility cannot be transferred to the machine. Every technological system embodies human choices and values, and we remain responsible for those choices. This does not mean AI systems are mere tools with no independent effects; their complexity can obscure responsibility and create new challenges for accountability. But obscured responsibility is not absent responsibility.

Consider social media and identity. Platforms encourage us to construct and perform fixed identities: personal brands, curated selves, tribal affiliations. Sartre would see this as an elaborate mechanism for bad faith, a way of pretending that we are what our profile says we are rather than ongoing projects of self-creation. The authentic response is not necessarily to abandon social media but to use it with awareness: this is a performance I am choosing, not a revelation of my fixed nature.

Consider mental health. Contemporary psychology has taught us much about the biological and environmental factors that shape our behavior. There is a tension here with Sartre's emphasis on freedom. Research on genetics, trauma, and neurochemistry suggests that our choices are more constrained than Sartre sometimes implies. Yet there is also a danger in using this knowledge to deny agency entirely: "I can't help it, I have anxiety," "My trauma made me do it." Perhaps the truth lies in a both/and: we are shaped by our circumstances, and we retain some degree of responsibility for how we respond to them. The person with anxiety chooses, within limits, how to relate to their anxiety. The person with trauma chooses, within limits, what meaning to make of it. This is not victim-blaming. It is the recognition that human dignity requires some measure of agency, and agency requires some measure of responsibility. The exact boundaries remain genuinely contested.

The most serious objection to Sartre's view is that it seems to ignore the real constraints on human freedom. We are embodied creatures, shaped by genetics, upbringing, social position, economic circumstances. How can Sartre claim we are radically free when so much of our lives is determined by factors beyond our control?

Sartre's response distinguishes between facticity and freedom. Facticity refers to the given facts of our situation: our bodies, our histories, our social contexts. These are real and cannot be wished away. But freedom is how we relate to our facticity, the meaning we give it, the projects we undertake within it.

A person born into poverty did not choose that circumstance. But they choose how to respond to it: with resignation, resentment, determination, creativity. A person with a disability did not choose their body. But they choose what that disability means for their life, what projects to pursue, what identity to construct. The facts constrain the possibilities, but they do not determine the choice among possibilities.

This response has force, but critics argue it understates how severely circumstances can limit options. When someone faces genuine coercion, or when poverty leaves only terrible choices, speaking of "freedom" can seem tone-deaf. Sartre was aware of this tension. He was a committed leftist who believed in collective action to change oppressive structures. He insisted that even within oppression, human freedom persists, and that this freedom is the basis for resistance. But he also acknowledged that material conditions matter enormously and that changing them is a moral imperative. The slave who recognizes their freedom is already on the path to liberation; the slave who accepts their condition as natural has surrendered their humanity. Yet recognizing freedom is not the same as having good options.

A second objection concerns the apparent subjectivism of Sartre's ethics. If each person creates their own values, how can we condemn anyone? Isn't this just moral relativism dressed up in philosophical language?

Sartre's response appeals to the universal dimension of choice. When I choose, I choose for all humanity. I implicitly declare that this is how a human being should act. This means I cannot escape judgment. If I choose to deceive, I am declaring that deception is acceptable human conduct, and I must be willing to accept a world in which everyone deceives. If I am not willing to accept that world, then my choice is in bad faith.

Moreover, there is one value that existentialism cannot deny: freedom itself. Any attempt to suppress human freedom, whether through totalitarianism, manipulation, or the denial of agency, is condemned by the very structure of existentialist thought. We cannot coherently value our own freedom while denying the freedom of others.

Whether this is enough to ground a robust ethics remains debated. Critics argue that the universalizability test is too thin to rule out many harmful choices, and that valuing freedom does not tell us how to adjudicate conflicts between freedoms. Sartre's ethics remains more a starting point than a complete system.

Sartre's existentialism did not emerge from nowhere. It draws on Søren Kierkegaard's emphasis on individual existence and the leap of faith, Friedrich Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God and the need to create new values, Martin Heidegger's analysis of authentic and inauthentic existence, and Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method.

The lecture's influence extended far beyond philosophy. Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's lifelong companion and intellectual partner, applied existentialist principles to the situation of women in The Second Sex, arguing that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." This is a direct application of "existence precedes essence" to gender. Albert Camus, though he resisted the existentialist label, explored similar themes of absurdity and meaning-creation in The Myth of Sisyphus and his novels.

In psychology, existentialist themes shaped the humanistic movement of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, with their emphasis on self-actualization and authentic living. Viktor Frankl's logotherapy, developed partly in Nazi concentration camps, built on the existentialist insight that humans can find meaning even in the most extreme circumstances. Contemporary acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) draws on existentialist ideas about choosing values and committing to action despite uncertainty.

In literature and film, existentialism influenced everything from the theatre of the absurd to film noir to contemporary narratives exploring identity and choice. The questions Sartre raised remain the questions that drive serious art: Who am I? What should I do? How do I create meaning in a world without guarantees?

Existentialism Is a Humanism is not a comfortable text. It offers no reassurance, no external authority to lean on, no escape from the weight of freedom. It tells us that we are alone in our choices, that we cannot blame our nature or our circumstances, that we are fully responsible for who we become.

But this is also its power. In a world eager to explain away human agency through neuroscience, algorithms, social forces, and evolutionary psychology, Sartre insists on the irreducible reality of human freedom. In a culture that encourages us to find our "true selves" as if identity were a discovery rather than a creation, Sartre reminds us that we are always in the process of making ourselves through our choices.

The question Sartre poses is not whether his philosophy is true in some abstract sense. It is whether you are willing to live as if you were free.

Will you take responsibility for your choices or hide behind excuses? Will you create yourself authentically or perform a role you pretend was assigned to you?

The choice, as always, is yours.

• Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Sartre's magnum opus, a dense but rewarding exploration of consciousness, freedom, and the structures of human existence.
• De Beauvoir, Simone. The Ethics of Ambiguity. A more systematic attempt to derive an ethics from existentialist premises, written by Sartre's intellectual partner.
• Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/Or. A foundational text of existentialism, exploring the aesthetic and ethical modes of existence through a literary-philosophical experiment.
• Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. A meditation on absurdity and meaning that complements and challenges Sartre's existentialism.
• Flynn, Thomas. Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction. An accessible overview of the existentialist movement and its key figures.