Jean-Paul Sartre was a well-known 20th-century French philosopher and writer whose literary works strongly influenced the academic world and stimulated intellectual competition in the modern era. In Sartre's 1945 publication, “Existentialism and Humanism,” Sartre had discussed extensively the concept of abandonment – the idea that we live freely in this purposeless world, and his position on atheistic existentialism. His main argument was that existence precedes essence, therefore humans gain meaning through lived experiences since humans are free to choose and decide for themselves. From this he concludes that there is no “a priori” morality and that “God is a useless and expensive hypothesis” (28). In this article I will refute Sartre's moral nihilism argument since there is no obvious connection between the notion of freedom of choice and the idea that “a priori” morality does not exist. Sartre argued Therefore, the idea of "God", a being whose existence implies a purpose, seems absurd to Sartre. The only being that satisfies the first principle of existentialism is man: «Man first exists: he materializes in the world, meets himself and only then defines himself» (22). This simply implies that a human being is thrown into this world without any essence, meaning or characteristics. For example, if someone is to be deemed truthful, he is not truthful because he has told the truth once or twice, but is defined as truthful because he habitually tells the truth and lives in such a way that is deemed truthful. So, this person was created to be sincere as he defined his essence by living as a sincere individual. This idea also relates to the concept of abandonment; human beings have no inherent nature and are left alone in this world to define their own nature and
tags