Question

what does it mean to be free? make reference to Satre, and Beauvoir.

Answer 1

• Sartre argues that we are condemned to be free. Though we might give ourselves over to simple pleasures and differ our responsibilities to our jobs and lose our subjectivity in the name of others, ultimately that is only the attempts to get beyond our intense and overwhelming freedom.
• In the example, the waiter gives himself over to the identity of the waiter, abdicating himself to be able to do his job. He must perform the role and denies his own responsibility as the waiter. It isn’t him, it’s a job. Sartre’s point with this example highlights how stringent his view of freewill is, that he thinks the individual never escapes their freedom. The waiter is never, ever, simply his job. He is always himself. This matters because Sartre links freedom to authenticity and, for him, it is obtainable. One can be truly authentic, even if it is a difficult thing to obtain or maintain.
• According to Sartre, man is free to make his own choices, but is "condemned" to be free, because we did not create ourselves. Sartre's main point is that from the moment we are thrown into the world, we must be completely responsible for all of our actions. There are no eternal values or ethics that we can base the way we live off of.
• Sartre believed that throughout each of our existence, we must create meaning in each of our lives, and this is what it means to exist. We are responsible for our destiny and the way we live is formed from what we make of ourselves.
• Simone de Beauvior understands freedom for women as willing themselves free by finding solidarity in others and resisting the temptation to remain ignorant of the possibility of their own liberation.