Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1946

  My purpose here is to offer a defence of existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it.
First, it has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely ineffective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy. Moreover, since contemplation is a luxury, this would be only another bourgeois philosophy. This is, especially, the reproach made by the Communists.

From another quarter we are reproached for having underlined all that is ignominious in the human situation, for depicting what is mean, sordid or base to the neglect of certain things that possess charm and beauty and belong to the brighter side of human nature: for example, according to the Catholic critic, Mlle. Mercier, we forget how an infant smiles. Both from this side and from the other we are also reproached for leaving out of account the solidarity of mankind and considering man in isolation. And this, say the Communists, is because we base our doctrine upon pure subjectivity – upon the Cartesian “I think”: which is the moment in which solitary man attains to himself; a position from which it is impossible to regain solidarity with other men who exist outside of the self. The ego cannot reach them through the cogito.
From the Christian side, we are reproached as people who deny the reality and seriousness of human affairs. For since we ignore the commandments of God and all values prescribed as eternal, nothing remains but what is strictly voluntary. Everyone can do what he likes, and will be incapable, from such a point of view, of condemning either the point of view or the action of anyone else.
It is to these various reproaches that I shall endeavour to reply today; that is why I have entitled this brief exposition “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Many may be surprised at the mention of humanism in this connection, but we shall try to see in what sense we understand it. In any case, we can begin by saying that existentialism, in our sense of the word, is a doctrine that does render human life possible; a doctrine, also, which affirms that every truth and every action imply both an environment and a human subjectivity. The essential charge laid against us is, of course, that of over-emphasis upon the evil side of human life. I have lately been told of a lady who, whenever she lets slip a vulgar expression in a moment of nervousness, excuses herself by exclaiming, “I believe I am becoming an existentialist.” So it appears that ugliness is being identified with existentialism. That is why some people say we are “naturalistic,” and if we are, it is strange to see how much we scandalise and horrify them, for no one seems to be much frightened or humiliated nowadays by what is properly called naturalism. Those who can quite well keep down a novel by Zola such as La Terre are sickened as soon as they read an existentialist novel. Those who appeal to the wisdom of the people – which is a sad wisdom – find ours sadder still. And yet, what could be more disillusioned than such sayings as “Charity begins at home” or “Promote a rogue and he’ll sue you for damage, knock him down and he’ll do you homage”? We all know how many common sayings can be quoted to this effect, and they all mean much the same – that you must not oppose the powers that be; that you must not fight against superior force; must not meddle in matters that are above your station. Or that any action not in accordance with some tradition is mere romanticism; or that any undertaking which has not the support of proven experience is foredoomed to frustration; and that since experience has shown men to be invariably inclined to evil, there must be firm rules to restrain them, otherwise we shall have anarchy. It is, however, the people who are forever mouthing these dismal proverbs and, whenever they are told of some more or less repulsive action, say “How like human nature!” – it is these very people, always harping upon realism, who complain that existentialism is too gloomy a view of things. Indeed their excessive protests make me suspect that what is annoying them is not so much our pessimism, but, much more likely, our optimism. For at bottom, what is alarming in the doctrine that I am about to try to explain to you is – is it not? – that it confronts man with a possibility of choice. To verify this, let us review the whole question upon the strictly philosophic level. What, then, is this that we call existentialism?
Most of those who are making use of this word would be highly confused if required to explain its meaning. For since it has become fashionable, people cheerfully declare that this musician or that painter is “existentialist.” A columnist in Clartes signs himself “The Existentialist,” and, indeed, the word is now so loosely applied to so many things that it no longer means anything at all. It would appear that, for the lack of any novel doctrine such as that of surrealism, all those who are eager to join in the latest scandal or movement now seize upon this philosophy in which, however, they can find nothing to their purpose. For in truth this is of all teachings the least scandalous and the most austere: it is intended strictly for technicians and philosophers. All the same, it can easily be defined.
The question is only complicated because there are two kinds of existentialists. There are, on the one hand, the Christians, amongst whom I shall name Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, both professed Catholics; and on the other the existential atheists, amongst whom we must place Heidegger as well as the French existentialists and myself. What they have in common is simply the fact that they believe that existence comes before essence – or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective. What exactly do we mean by that?
If one considers an article of manufacture as, for example, a book or a paper-knife – one sees that it has been made by an artisan who had a conception of it; and he has paid attention, equally, to the conception of a paper-knife and to the pre-existent technique of production which is a part of that conception and is, at bottom, a formula. Thus the paper-knife is at the same time an article producible in a certain manner and one which, on the other hand, serves a definite purpose, for one cannot suppose that a man would produce a paper-knife without knowing what it was for. Let us say, then, of the paperknife that its essence – that is to say the sum of the formulae and the qualities which made its production and its definition possible – precedes its existence. The presence of such-and-such a paper-knife or book is thus determined before my eyes. Here, then, we are viewing the world from a technical standpoint, and we can say that production precedes existence.
When we think of God as the creator, we are thinking of him, most of the time, as a supernal artisan. Whatever doctrine we may be considering, whether it be a doctrine like that of Descartes, or of Leibnitz himself, we always imply that the will follows, more or less, from the understanding or at least accompanies it, so that when God creates he knows precisely what he is creating. Thus, the conception of man in the mind of God is comparable to that of the paper-knife in the mind of the artisan: God makes man according to a procedure and a conception, exactly as the artisan manufactures a paper-knife, following a definition and a formula. Thus each individual man is the realisation of a certain conception which dwells in the divine understanding. In the philosophic atheism of the eighteenth century, the notion of God is suppressed, but not, for all that, the idea that essence is prior to existence; something of that idea we still find everywhere, in Diderot, in Voltaire and even in Kant. Man possesses a human nature; that “human nature,” which is the conception of human being, is found in every man; which means that each man is a particular example of a universal conception, the conception of Man. In Kant, this universality goes so far that the wild man of the woods, man in the state of nature and the bourgeois are all contained in the same definition and have the same fundamental qualities. Here again, the essence of man precedes that historic existence which we confront in experience.
Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man or, as Heidegger has it, the human reality. What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself.


Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism. And this is what people call its “subjectivity,” using the word as a reproach against us. But what do we mean to say by this, but that man is of a greater dignity than a stone or a table? For we mean to say that man primarily exists – that man is, before all else, something which propels itself towards a future and is aware that it is doing so. Man is, indeed, a project which possesses a subjective life, instead of being a kind of moss, or a fungus or a cauliflower. Before that projection of the self nothing exists; not even in the heaven of intelligence: man will only attain existence when he is what he purposes to be. Not, however, what he may wish to be. For what we usually understand by wishing or willing is a conscious decision taken – much more often than not – after we have made ourselves what we are. I may wish to join a party, to write a book or to marry – but in such a case what is usually called my will is probably a manifestation of a prior and more spontaneous decision. If, however, it is true that existence is prior to essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. The word “subjectivism” is to be understood in two senses, and our adversaries play upon only one of them. Subjectivism means, on the one hand, the freedom of the individual subject and, on the other, that man cannot pass beyond human subjectivity. It is the latter which is the deeper meaning of existentialism. When we say that man chooses himself, we do mean that every one of us must choose himself; but by that we also mean that in choosing for himself he chooses for all men. For in effect, of all the actions a man may take in order to create himself as he wills to be, there is not one which is not creative, at the same time, of an image of man such as he believes he ought to be. To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen; for we are unable ever to choose the worse. What we choose is always the better; and nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all. If, moreover, existence precedes essence and we will to exist at the same time as we fashion our image, that image is valid for all and for the entire epoch in which we find ourselves. Our responsibility is thus much greater than we had supposed, for it concerns mankind as a whole. If I am a worker, for instance, I may choose to join a Christian rather than a Communist trade union. And if, by that membership, I choose to signify that resignation is, after all, the attitude that best becomes a man, that man’s kingdom is not upon this earth, I do not commit myself alone to that view. Resignation is my will for everyone, and my action is, in consequence, a commitment on behalf of all mankind. Or if, to take a more personal case, I decide to marry and to have children, even though this decision proceeds simply from my situation, from my passion or my desire, I am thereby committing not only myself, but humanity as a whole, to the practice of monogamy. I am thus responsible for myself and for all men, and I am creating a certain image of man as I would have him to be. In fashioning myself I fashion man.
This may enable us to understand what is meant by such terms – perhaps a little grandiloquent – as anguish, abandonment and despair. As you will soon see, it is very simple. First, what do we mean by anguish? – The existentialist frankly states that man is in anguish. His meaning is as follows: When a man commits himself to anything, fully realising that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind – in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility. There are many, indeed, who show no such anxiety. But we affirm that they are merely disguising their anguish or are in flight from it. Certainly, many people think that in what they are doing they commit no one but themselves to anything: and if you ask them, “What would happen if everyone did so?” they shrug their shoulders and reply, “Everyone does not do so.” But in truth, one ought always to ask oneself what would happen if everyone did as one is doing; nor can one escape from that disturbing thought except by a kind of self-deception. The man who lies in self-excuse, by saying “Everyone will not do it” must be ill at ease in his conscience, for the act of lying implies the universal value which it denies. By its very disguise his anguish reveals itself. This is the anguish that Kierkegaard called “the anguish of Abraham.” You know the story: An angel commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son; and obedience was obligatory, if it really was an angel who had appeared and said, “Thou, Abraham, shalt sacrifice thy son.” But anyone in such a case would wonder, first, whether it was indeed an angel and secondly, whether I am really Abraham. Where are the proofs? A certain mad woman who suffered from hallucinations said that people were telephoning to her, and giving her orders. The doctor asked, “But who is it that speaks to you?” She replied: “He says it is God.” And what, indeed, could prove to her that it was God? If an angel appears to me, what is the proof that it is an angel; or, if I hear voices, who can prove that they proceed from heaven and not from hell, or from my own subconsciousness or some pathological condition? Who can prove that they are really addressed to me?
Who, then, can prove that I am the proper person to impose, by my own choice, my conception of man upon mankind? I shall never find any proof whatever; there will be no sign to convince me of it. If a voice speaks to me, it is still I myself who must decide whether the voice is or is not that of an angel. If I regard a certain course of action as good, it is only I who choose to say that it is good and not bad. There is nothing to show that I am Abraham: nevertheless I also am obliged at every instant to perform actions which are examples. Everything happens to every man as though the whole human race had its eyes fixed upon what he is doing and regulated its conduct accordingly. So every man ought to say, “Am I really a man who has the right to act in such a manner that humanity regulates itself by what I do.” If a man does not say that, he is dissembling his anguish. Clearly, the anguish with which we are concerned here is not one that could lead to quietism or inaction. It is anguish pure and simple, of the kind well known to all those who have borne responsibilities. When, for instance, a military leader takes upon himself the responsibility for an attack and sends a number of men to their death, he chooses to do it and at bottom he alone chooses. No doubt under a higher command, but its orders, which are more general, require interpretation by him and upon that interpretation depends the life of ten, fourteen or twenty men. In making the decision, he cannot but feel a certain anguish. All leaders know that anguish. It does not prevent their acting, on the contrary it is the very condition of their action, for the action presupposes that there is a plurality of possibilities, and in choosing one of these, they realize that it has value only because it is chosen. Now it is anguish of that kind which existentialism describes, and moreover, as we shall see, makes explicit through direct responsibility towards other men who are concerned. Far from being a screen which could separate us from action, it is a condition of action itself.
And when we speak of “abandonment” – a favorite word of Heidegger – we only mean to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain type of secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. Towards 1880, when the French professors endeavoured to formulate a secular morality, they said something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis, so we will do without it. However, if we are to have morality, a society and a law-abiding world, it is essential that certain values should be taken seriously; they must have an a priori existence ascribed to them. It must be considered obligatory a priori to be honest, not to lie, not to beat one’s wife, to bring up children and so forth; so we are going to do a little work on this subject, which will enable us to show that these values exist all the same, inscribed in an intelligible heaven although, of course, there is no God. In other words – and this is, I believe, the purport of all that we in France call radicalism – nothing will be changed if God does not exist; we shall rediscover the same norms of honesty, progress and humanity, and we shall have disposed of God as an out-of-date hypothesis which will die away quietly of itself. The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man. As Ponge has written in a very fine article, “Man is the future of man.” That is exactly true. Only, if one took this to mean that the future is laid up in Heaven, that God knows what it is, it would be false, for then it would no longer even be a future. If, however, it means that, whatever man may now appear to be, there is a future to be fashioned, a virgin future that awaits him – then it is a true saying. But in the present one is forsaken.
As an example by which you may the better understand this state of abandonment, I will refer to the case of a pupil of mine, who sought me out in the following circumstances. His father was quarrelling with his mother and was also inclined to be a “collaborator”; his elder brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man, with a sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him. His mother was living alone with him, deeply afflicted by the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her eldest son, and her one consolation was in this young man. But he, at this moment, had the choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces or of staying near his mother and helping her to live. He fully realised that this woman lived only for him and that his disappearance – or perhaps his death – would plunge her into despair. He also realised that, concretely and in fact, every action he performed on his mother’s behalf would be sure of effect in the sense of aiding her to live, whereas anything he did in order to go and fight would be an ambiguous action which might vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose. For instance, to set out for England he would have to wait indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way through Spain; or, on arriving in England or in Algiers he might be put into an office to fill up forms. Consequently, he found himself confronted by two very different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate, but directed towards only one individual; and the other an action addressed to an end infinitely greater, a national collectivity, but for that very reason ambiguous – and it might be frustrated on the way. At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of morality; on the one side the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion and, on the other side, a morality of wider scope but of more debatable validity. He had to choose between those two. What could help him to choose? Could the Christian doctrine? No. Christian doctrine says: Act with charity, love your neighbour, deny yourself for others, choose the way which is hardest, and so forth. But which is the harder road? To whom does one owe the more brotherly love, the patriot or the mother? Which is the more useful aim, the general one of fighting in and for the whole community, or the precise aim of helping one particular person to live? Who can give an answer to that a priori? No one. Nor is it given in any ethical scripture. The Kantian ethic says, Never regard another as a means, but always as an end. Very well; if I remain with my mother, I shall be regarding her as the end and not as a means: but by the same token I am in danger of treating as means those who are fighting on my behalf; and the converse is also true, that if I go to the aid of the combatants I shall be treating them as the end at the risk of treating my mother as a means. If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts. That is what this young man tried to do; and when I saw him he said, “In the end, it is feeling that counts; the direction in which it is really pushing me is the one I ought to choose. If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her – my will to be avenged, all my longings for action and adventure then I stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel that my love for her is not enough, I go.” But how does one estimate the strength of a feeling? The value of his feeling for his mother was determined precisely by the fact that he was standing by her. I may say that I love a certain friend enough to sacrifice such or such a sum of money for him, but I cannot prove that unless I have done it. I may say, “I love my mother enough to remain with her,” if actually I have remained with her. I can only estimate the strength of this affection if I have performed an action by which it is defined and ratified. But if I then appeal to this affection to justify my action, I find myself drawn into a vicious circle.
Moreover, as Gide has very well said, a sentiment which is play-acting and one which is vital are two things that are hardly distinguishable one from another. To decide that I love my mother by staying beside her, and to play a comedy the upshot of which is that I do so – these are nearly the same thing. In other words, feeling is formed by the deeds that one does; therefore I cannot consult it as a guide to action. And that is to say that I can neither seek within myself for an authentic impulse to action, nor can I expect, from some ethic, formulae that will enable me to act. You may say that the youth did, at least, go to a professor to ask for advice. But if you seek counsel – from a priest, for example you have selected that priest; and at bottom you already knew, more or less, what he would advise. In other words, to choose an adviser is nevertheless to commit oneself by that choice. If you are a Christian, you will say, consult a priest; but there are collaborationists, priests who are resisters and priests who wait for the tide to turn: which will you choose? Had this young man chosen a priest of the resistance, or one of the collaboration, he would have decided beforehand the kind of advice he was to receive. Similarly, in coming to me, he knew what advice I should give him, and I had but one reply to make. You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent. No rule of general morality can show you what you ought to do: no signs are vouchsafed in this world. The Catholics will reply, “Oh, but they are!” Very well; still, it is I myself, in every case, who have to interpret the signs. While I was imprisoned, I made the acquaintance of a somewhat remarkable man, a Jesuit, who had become a member of that order in the following manner. In his life he had suffered a succession of rather severe setbacks. His father had died when he was a child, leaving him in poverty, and he had been awarded a free scholarship in a religious institution, where he had been made continually to feel that he was accepted for charity’s sake, and, in consequence, he had been denied several of those distinctions and honours which gratify children. Later, about the age of eighteen, he came to grief in a sentimental affair; and finally, at twenty-two – this was a trifle in itself, but it was the last drop that overflowed his cup – he failed in his military examination. This young man, then, could regard himself as a total failure: it was a sign – but a sign of what? He might have taken refuge in bitterness or despair. But he took it – very cleverly for him – as a sign that he was not intended for secular success, and that only the attainments of religion, those of sanctity and of faith, were accessible to him. He interpreted his record as a message from God, and became a member of the Order. Who can doubt but that this decision as to the meaning of the sign was his, and his alone? One could have drawn quite different conclusions from such a series of reverses – as, for example, that he had better become a carpenter or a revolutionary. For the decipherment of the sign, however, he bears the entire responsibility. That is what “abandonment” implies, that we ourselves decide our being. And with this abandonment goes anguish.
As for “despair,” the meaning of this expression is extremely simple. It merely means that we limit ourselves to a reliance upon that which is within our wills, or within the sum of the probabilities which render our action feasible. Whenever one wills anything, there are always these elements of probability. If I am counting upon a visit from a friend, who may be coming by train or by tram, I presuppose that the train will arrive at the appointed time, or that the tram will not be derailed. I remain in the realm of possibilities; but one does not rely upon any possibilities beyond those that are strictly concerned in one’s action. Beyond the point at which the possibilities under consideration cease to affect my action, I ought to disinterest myself. For there is no God and no prevenient design, which can adapt the world and all its possibilities to my will. When Descartes said, “Conquer yourself rather than the world,” what he meant was, at bottom, the same – that we should act without hope.
Marxists, to whom I have said this, have answered: “Your action is limited, obviously, by your death; but you can rely upon the help of others. That is, you can count both upon what the others are doing to help you elsewhere, as in China and in Russia, and upon what they will do later, after your death, to take up your action and carry it forward to its final accomplishment which will be the revolution. Moreover you must rely upon this; not to do so is immoral.” To this I rejoin, first, that I shall always count upon my comrades-in-arms in the struggle, in so far as they are committed, as I am, to a definite, common cause; and in the unity of a party or a group which I can more or less control – that is, in which I am enrolled as a militant and whose movements at every moment are known to me. In that respect, to rely upon the unity and the will of the party is exactly like my reckoning that the train will run to time or that the tram will not be derailed. But I cannot count upon men whom I do not know, I cannot base my confidence upon human goodness or upon man’s interest in the good of society, seeing that man is free and that there is no human nature which I can take as foundational. I do not know where the Russian revolution will lead. I can admire it and take it as an example in so far as it is evident, today, that the proletariat plays a part in Russia which it has attained in no other nation. But I cannot affirm that this will necessarily lead to the triumph of the proletariat: I must confine myself to what I can see. Nor can I be sure that comrades-in-arms will take up my work after my death and carry it to the maximum perfection, seeing that those men are free agents and will freely decide, tomorrow, what man is then to be. Tomorrow, after my death, some men may decide to establish Fascism, and the others may be so cowardly or so slack as to let them do so. If so, Fascism will then be the truth of man, and so much the worse for us. In reality, things will be such as men have decided they shall be. Does that mean that I should abandon myself to quietism? No. First I ought to commit myself and then act my commitment, according to the time-honoured formula that “one need not hope in order to undertake one’s work.” Nor does this mean that I should not belong to a party, but only that I should be without illusion and that I should do what I can. For instance, if I ask myself “Will the social ideal as such, ever become a reality?” I cannot tell, I only know that whatever may be in my power to make it so, I shall do; beyond that, I can count upon nothing.
Quietism is the attitude of people who say, “let others do what I cannot do.” The doctrine I am presenting before you is precisely the opposite of this, since it declares that there is no reality except in action. It goes further, indeed, and adds, “Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realises himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.” Hence we can well understand why some people are horrified by our teaching. For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, “Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions.” But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art. The genius of Proust is the totality of the works of Proust; the genius of Racine is the series of his tragedies, outside of which there is nothing. Why should we attribute to Racine the capacity to write yet another tragedy when that is precisely what he did not write? In life, a man commits himself, draws his own portrait and there is nothing but that portrait. No doubt this thought may seem comfortless to one who has not made a success of his life. On the other hand, it puts everyone in a position to understand that reality alone is reliable; that dreams, expectations and hopes serve to define a man only as deceptive dreams, abortive hopes, expectations unfulfilled; that is to say, they define him negatively, not positively. Nevertheless, when one says, “You are nothing else but what you live,” it does not imply that an artist is to be judged solely by his works of art, for a thousand other things contribute no less to his definition as a man. What we mean to say is that a man is no other than a series of undertakings, that he is the sum, the organisation, the set of relations that constitute these undertakings.
In the light of all this, what people reproach us with is not, after all, our pessimism, but the sternness of our optimism. If people condemn our works of fiction, in which we describe characters that are base, weak, cowardly and sometimes even frankly evil, it is not only because those characters are base, weak, cowardly or evil. For suppose that, like Zola, we showed that the behaviour of these characters was caused by their heredity, or by the action of their environment upon them, or by determining factors, psychic or organic. People would be reassured, they would say, “You see, that is what we are like, no one can do anything about it.” But the existentialist, when he portrays a coward, shows him as responsible for his cowardice. He is not like that on account of a cowardly heart or lungs or cerebrum, he has not become like that through his physiological organism; he is like that because he has made himself into a coward by actions. There is no such thing as a cowardly temperament. There are nervous temperaments; there is what is called impoverished blood, and there are also rich temperaments. But the man whose blood is poor is not a coward for all that, for what produces cowardice is the act of giving up or giving way; and a temperament is not an action. A coward is defined by the deed that he has done. What people feel obscurely, and with horror, is that the coward as we present him is guilty of being a coward. What people would prefer would be to be born either a coward or a hero. One of the charges most often laid against the Chemins de la Liberté is something like this: “But, after all, these people being so base, how can you make them into heroes?” That objection is really rather comic, for it implies that people are born heroes: and that is, at bottom, what such people would like to think. If you are born cowards, you can be quite content, you can do nothing about it and you will be cowards all your lives whatever you do; and if you are born heroes you can again be quite content; you will be heroes all your lives eating and drinking heroically. Whereas the existentialist says that the coward makes himself cowardly, the hero makes himself heroic; and that there is always a possibility for the coward to give up cowardice and for the hero to stop being a hero. What counts is the total commitment, and it is not by a particular case or particular action that you are committed altogether.
We have now, I think, dealt with a certain number of the reproaches against existentialism. You have seen that it cannot be regarded as a philosophy of quietism since it defines man by his action; nor as a pessimistic description of man, for no doctrine is more optimistic, the destiny of man is placed within himself. Nor is it an attempt to discourage man from action since it tells him that there is no hope except in his action, and that the one thing which permits him to have life is the deed. Upon this level therefore, what we are considering is an ethic of action and self-commitment. However, we are still reproached, upon these few data, for confining man within his individual subjectivity. There again people badly misunderstand us.
Our point of departure is, indeed, the subjectivity of the individual, and that for strictly philosophic reasons. It is not because we are bourgeois, but because we seek to base our teaching upon the truth, and not upon a collection of fine theories, full of hope but lacking real foundations. And at the point of departure there cannot be any other truth than this, I think, therefore I am, which is the absolute truth of consciousness as it attains to itself. Every theory which begins with man, outside of this moment of self-attainment, is a theory which thereby suppresses the truth, for outside of the Cartesian cogito, all objects are no more than probable, and any doctrine of probabilities which is not attached to a truth will crumble into nothing. In order to define the probable one must possess the true. Before there can be any truth whatever, then, there must be an absolute truth, and there is such a truth which is simple, easily attained and within the reach of everybody; it consists in one’s immediate sense of one’s self.
In the second place, this theory alone is compatible with the dignity of man, it is the only one which does not make man into an object. All kinds of materialism lead one to treat every man including oneself as an object – that is, as a set of pre-determined reactions, in no way different from the patterns of qualities and phenomena which constitute a table, or a chair or a stone. Our aim is precisely to establish the human kingdom as a pattern of values in distinction from the material world. But the subjectivity which we thus postulate as the standard of truth is no narrowly individual subjectivism, for as we have demonstrated, it is not only one’s own self that one discovers in the cogito, but those of others too. Contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, contrary to that of Kant, when we say “I think” we are attaining to ourselves in the presence of the other, and we are just as certain of the other as we are of ourselves. Thus the man who discovers himself directly in thecogito also discovers all the others, and discovers them as the condition of his own existence. He recognises that he cannot be anything (in the sense in which one says one is spiritual, or that one is wicked or jealous) unless others recognise him as such. I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another. The other is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge I can have of myself. Under these conditions, the intimate discovery of myself is at the same time the revelation of the other as a freedom which confronts mine, and which cannot think or will without doing so either for or against me. Thus, at once, we find ourselves in a world which is, let us say, that of “inter-subjectivity”. It is in this world that man has to decide what he is and what others are.
Furthermore, although it is impossible to find in each and every man a universal essence that can be called human nature, there is nevertheless a human universality of condition. It is not by chance that the thinkers of today are so much more ready to speak of the condition than of the nature of man. By his condition they understand, with more or less clarity, all the limitations which a priori define man’s fundamental situation in the universe. His historical situations are variable: man may be born a slave in a pagan society or may be a feudal baron, or a proletarian. But what never vary are the necessities of being in the world, of having to labor and to die there. These limitations are neither subjective nor objective, or rather there is both a subjective and an objective aspect of them. Objective, because we meet with them everywhere and they are everywhere recognisable: and subjective because they are lived and are nothing if man does not live them – if, that is to say, he does not freely determine himself and his existence in relation to them. And, diverse though man’s purpose may be, at least none of them is wholly foreign to me, since every human purpose presents itself as an attempt either to surpass these limitations, or to widen them, or else to deny or to accommodate oneself to them. Consequently every purpose, however individual it may be, is of universal value. Every purpose, even that of a Chinese, an Indian or a Negro, can be understood by a European. To say it can be understood, means that the European of 1945 may be striving out of a certain situation towards the same limitations in the same way, and that he may reconceive in himself the purpose of the Chinese, of the Indian or the African. In every purpose there is universality, in this sense that every purpose is comprehensible to every man. Not that this or that purpose defines man for ever, but that it may be entertained again and again. There is always some way of understanding an idiot, a child, a primitive man or a foreigner if one has sufficient information. In this sense we may say that there is a human universality, but it is not something given; it is being perpetually made. I make this universality in choosing myself; I also make it by understanding the purpose of any other man, of whatever epoch. This absoluteness of the act of choice does not alter the relativity of each epoch.
What is at the very heart and center of existentialism, is the absolute character of the free commitment, by which every man realises himself in realising a type of humanity – a commitment always understandable, to no matter whom in no matter what epoch – and its bearing upon the relativity of the cultural pattern which may result from such absolute commitment. One must observe equally the relativity of Cartesianism and the absolute character of the Cartesian commitment. In this sense you may say, if you like, that every one of us makes the absolute by breathing, by eating, by sleeping or by behaving in any fashion whatsoever. There is no difference between free being – being as self-committal, as existence choosing its essence – and absolute being. And there is no difference whatever between being as an absolute, temporarily localised that is, localised in history – and universally intelligible being.
This does not completely refute the charge of subjectivism. Indeed that objection appears in several other forms, of which the first is as follows. People say to us, “Then it does not matter what you do,” and they say this in various ways.
First they tax us with anarchy; then they say, “You cannot judge others, for there is no reason for preferring one purpose to another”; finally, they may say, “Everything being merely voluntary in this choice of yours, you give away with one hand what you pretend to gain with the other.” These three are not very serious objections. As to the first, to say that it does not matter what you choose is not correct. In one sense choice is possible, but what is not possible is not to choose. I can always choose, but I must know that if I do not choose, that is still a choice. This, although it may appear merely formal, is of great importance as a limit to fantasy and caprice. For, when I confront a real situation – for example, that I am a sexual being, able to have relations with a being of the other sex and able to have children – I am obliged to choose my attitude to it, and in every respect I bear the responsibility of the choice which, in committing myself, also commits the whole of humanity. Even if my choice is determined by no a priori value whatever, it can have nothing to do with caprice: and if anyone thinks that this is only Gide’s theory of the acte gratuit over again, he has failed to see the enormous difference between this theory and that of Gide. Gide does not know what a situation is, his “act” is one of pure caprice. In our view, on the contrary, man finds himself in an organised situation in which he is himself involved: his choice involves mankind in its entirety, and he cannot avoid choosing. Either he must remain single, or he must marry without having children, or he must marry and have children. In any case, and whichever he may choose, it is impossible for him, in respect of this situation, not to take complete responsibility. Doubtless he chooses without reference to any pre-established value, but it is unjust to tax him with caprice. Rather let us say that the moral choice is comparable to the construction of a work of art.
But here I must at once digress to make it quite clear that we are not propounding an aesthetic morality, for our adversaries are disingenuous enough to reproach us even with that. I mention the work of art only by way of comparison. That being understood, does anyone reproach an artist, when he paints a picture, for not following rules established a priori. Does one ever ask what is the picture that he ought to paint? As everyone knows, there is no pre-defined picture for him to make; the artist applies himself to the composition of a picture, and the picture that ought to be made is precisely that which he will have made. As everyone knows, there are no aesthetic values a priori, but there are values which will appear in due course in the coherence of the picture, in the relation between the will to create and the finished work. No one can tell what the painting of tomorrow will be like; one cannot judge a painting until it is done. What has that to do with morality? We are in the same creative situation. We never speak of a work of art as irresponsible; when we are discussing a canvas by Picasso, we understand very well that the composition became what it is at the time when he was painting it, and that his works are part and parcel of his entire life.
It is the same upon the plane of morality. There is this in common between art and morality, that in both we have to do with creation and invention. We cannot decide a priori what it is that should be done. I think it was made sufficiently clear to you in the case of that student who came to see me, that to whatever ethical system he might appeal, the Kantian or any other, he could find no sort of guidance whatever; he was obliged to invent the law for himself. Certainly we cannot say that this man, in choosing to remain with his mother – that is, in taking sentiment, personal devotion and concrete charity as his moral foundations – would be making an irresponsible choice, nor could we do so if he preferred the sacrifice of going away to England. Man makes himself; he is not found ready-made; he makes himself by the choice of his morality, and he cannot but choose a morality, such is the pressure of circumstances upon him. We define man only in relation to his commitments; it is therefore absurd to reproach us for irresponsibility in our choice.
In the second place, people say to us, “You are unable to judge others.” This is true in one sense and false in another. It is true in this sense, that whenever a man chooses his purpose and his commitment in all clearness and in all sincerity, whatever that purpose may be, it is impossible for him to prefer another. It is true in the sense that we do not believe in progress. Progress implies amelioration; but man is always the same, facing a situation which is always changing, and choice remains always a choice in the situation. The moral problem has not changed since the time when it was a choice between slavery and anti-slavery – from the time of the war of Secession, for example, until the present moment when one chooses between the M.R.P. [Mouvement Republicain Poputaire] and the Communists.
We can judge, nevertheless, for, as I have said, one chooses in view of others, and in view of others one chooses himself. One can judge, first – and perhaps this is not a judgment of value, but it is a logical judgment – that in certain cases choice is founded upon an error, and in others upon the truth. One can judge a man by saying that he deceives himself. Since we have defined the situation of man as one of free choice, without excuse and without help, any man who takes refuge behind the excuse of his passions, or by inventing some deterministic doctrine, is a self-deceiver. One may object: “But why should he not choose to deceive himself?” I reply that it is not for me to judge him morally, but I define his self-deception as an error. Here one cannot avoid pronouncing a judgment of truth. The self-deception is evidently a falsehood, because it is a dissimulation of man’s complete liberty of commitment. Upon this same level, I say that it is also a self-deception if I choose to declare that certain values are incumbent upon me; I am in contradiction with myself if I will these values and at the same time say that they impose themselves upon me. If anyone says to me, “And what if I wish to deceive myself?” I answer, “There is no reason why you should not, but I declare that you are doing so, and that the attitude of strict consistency alone is that of good faith.” Furthermore, I can pronounce a moral judgment. For I declare that freedom, in respect of concrete circumstances, can have no other end and aim but itself; and when once a man has seen that values depend upon himself, in that state of forsakenness he can will only one thing, and that is freedom as the foundation of all values. That does not mean that he wills it in the abstract: it simply means that the actions of men of good faith have, as their ultimate significance, the quest of freedom itself as such. A man who belongs to some communist or revolutionary society wills certain concrete ends, which imply the will to freedom, but that freedom is willed in community. We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim. Consequently, when I recognise, as entirely authentic, that man is a being whose existence precedes his essence, and that he is a free being who cannot, in any circumstances, but will his freedom, at the same time I realize that I cannot not will the freedom of others. Thus, in the name of that will to freedom which is implied in freedom itself, I can form judgments upon those who seek to hide from themselves the wholly voluntary nature of their existence and its complete freedom. Those who hide from this total freedom, in a guise of solemnity or with deterministic excuses, I shall call cowards. Others, who try to show that their existence is necessary, when it is merely an accident of the appearance of the human race on earth – I shall call scum. But neither cowards nor scum can be identified except upon the plane of strict authenticity. Thus, although the content of morality is variable, a certain form of this morality is universal. Kant declared that freedom is a will both to itself and to the freedom of others. Agreed: but he thinks that the formal and the universal suffice for the constitution of a morality. We think, on the contrary, that principles that are too abstract break down when we come to defining action. To take once again the case of that student; by what authority, in the name of what golden rule of morality, do you think he could have decided, in perfect peace of mind, either to abandon his mother or to remain with her? There are no means of judging. The content is always concrete, and therefore unpredictable; it has always to be invented. The one thing that counts, is to know whether the invention is made in the name of freedom.
Let us, for example, examine the two following cases, and you will see how far they are similar in spite of their difference. Let us take The Mill on the Floss. We find here a certain young woman, Maggie Tulliver, who is an incarnation of the value of passion and is aware of it. She is in love with a young man, Stephen, who is engaged to another, an insignificant young woman. This Maggie Tulliver, instead of heedlessly seeking her own happiness, chooses in the name of human solidarity to sacrifice herself and to give up the man she loves. On the other hand, La Sanseverina in Stendhal’s Chartreuse de Parme, believing that it is passion which endows man with his real value, would have declared that a grand passion justifies its sacrifices, and must be preferred to the banality of such conjugal love as would unite Stephen to the little goose he was engaged to marry. It is the latter that she would have chosen to sacrifice in realising her own happiness, and, as Stendhal shows, she would also sacrifice herself upon the plane of passion if life made that demand upon her. Here we are facing two clearly opposed moralities; but I claim that they are equivalent, seeing that in both cases the overruling aim is freedom. You can imagine two attitudes exactly similar in effect, in that one girl might prefer, in resignation, to give up her lover while the other preferred, in fulfilment of sexual desire, to ignore the prior engagement of the man she loved; and, externally, these two cases might appear the same as the two we have just cited, while being in fact entirely different. The attitude of La Sanseverina is much nearer to that of Maggie Tulliver than to one of careless greed. Thus, you see, the second objection is at once true and false. One can choose anything, but only if it is upon the plane of free commitment.
The third objection, stated by saying, “You take with one hand what you give with the other,” means, at bottom, “your values are not serious, since you choose them yourselves.” To that I can only say that I am very sorry that it should be so; but if I have excluded God the Father, there must be somebody to invent values. We have to take things as they are. And moreover, to say that we invent values means neither more nor less than this; that there is no sense in life a priori. Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose. Therefore, you can see that there is a possibility of creating a human community. I have been reproached for suggesting that existentialism is a form of humanism: people have said to me, “But you have written in your Nausée that the humanists are wrong, you have even ridiculed a certain type of humanism, why do you now go back upon that?” In reality, the word humanism has two very different meanings. One may understand by humanism a theory which upholds man as the end-in-itself and as the supreme value. Humanism in this sense appears, for instance, in Cocteau’s story Round the World in 80 Hours, in which one of the characters declares, because he is flying over mountains in an airplane, “Man is magnificent!” This signifies that although I personally have not built aeroplanes, I have the benefit of those particular inventions and that I personally, being a man, can consider myself responsible for, and honoured by, achievements that are peculiar to some men. It is to assume that we can ascribe value to man according to the most distinguished deeds of certain men. That kind of humanism is absurd, for only the dog or the horse would be in a position to pronounce a general judgment upon man and declare that he is magnificent, which they have never been such fools as to do – at least, not as far as I know. But neither is it admissible that a man should pronounce judgment upon Man. Existentialism dispenses with any judgment of this sort: an existentialist will never take man as the end, since man is still to be determined. And we have no right to believe that humanity is something to which we could set up a cult, after the manner of Auguste Comte. The cult of humanity ends in Comtian humanism, shut-in upon itself, and – this must be said – in Fascism. We do not want a humanism like that.
But there is another sense of the word, of which the fundamental meaning is this: Man is all the time outside of himself: it is in projecting and losing himself beyond himself that he makes man to exist; and, on the other hand, it is by pursuing transcendent aims that he himself is able to exist. Since man is thus self-surpassing, and can grasp objects only in relation to his self-surpassing, he is himself the heart and center of his transcendence. There is no other universe except the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity. This relation of transcendence as constitutive of man (not in the sense that God is transcendent, but in the sense of self-surpassing) with subjectivity (in such a sense that man is not shut up in himself but forever present in a human universe) – it is this that we call existential humanism. This is humanism, because we remind man that there is no legislator but himself; that he himself, thus abandoned, must decide for himself; also because we show that it is not by turning back upon himself, but always by seeking, beyond himself, an aim which is one of liberation or of some particular realisation, that man can realize himself as truly human.
You can see from these few reflections that nothing could be more unjust than the objections people raise against us. Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. Its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair. And if by despair one means as the Christians do – any attitude of unbelief, the despair of the existentialists is something different. Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only by self-deception, by confining their own despair with ours that Christians can describe us as without hope.


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存在這里，我的目的是要對存在主義所受到的一些指責，提出答辯。 


存在主義是一種人道主義


        首先，存在主義曾被指責爲誘導人們安於一種絕望的無爲主義（ｑｕｉｅｔｉｓｍ）。因爲如果每一條解決事物之道被阻斷了，那麼我們就不得不視在這世界上的任何行爲都是徒勞無益的，我們最後就會走到一種瞑想的哲學里去。而更甚的是，由於瞑想是一種奢侈，因此我們的學說就不過是另一種布爾喬亞的哲學而已。在這方面，是特别受到共產主義者的指責。

          在另一方面，我們被指責爲偏重了人類處境中黯淡的一面，隻看到下賤，卑鄙和低劣，而忽略了人性光明面中某些仁慈而美好的事物。例如根據天主教的批評者默契爾小姐所說，我們忘記了嬰兒是怎樣微笑的。從這兩方面，我們又被指責爲無見於人類的協和一致，而認爲人是處於孤立之中。共產主義者說我們之所以如此，主要是因爲我們的學說純粹建築在主觀性上——建築在笛卡爾所謂“我思”這個觀念之上：這是孤立的人面對他們的時刻，這是一個無法和其他存在於自我之外的人取得協和一致的地位。自我不能透過思維而與他們相通。

       從基督教這一面，我們則被指責爲否定了人事的真實和嚴肅。因爲我們忽視了上帝的誡言和他規定的所有的永恒價值，那就除了自由意願之外，别無所有了。每一個人都可以爲所欲爲，從這一個觀點來看，就不能譴責他人的觀點和行爲了。

        今天，我將盡量來答複這些不同的指責。這也就是我爲什麼把這短文題爲“存在主義是一種人文主義”的理由。許多人對於我在這里提到“人文主義”一詞，可能會感到驚訝，但是我將試圖尋出我們所了解的意義。無論如何，我們一開始就可以說，存在主義乃是使人生成爲可能的一種學說；這種學說並宣稱任何真理和行爲都包含着環境和人的主觀性。

     　對於我們最基本的攻擊，當然是說我們過份強調了人生的罪惡面。最近有人告訴我一個故事，說有一位太太，無論在什麼時候，隻要她神經過敏地說了一句粗俗的話，就自我解嘲地叫道：“我想我要變成一個存在主義者了。”由此可以看出，醜惡被視爲存在主義的同義詞了。這也就是爲什麼有些人說我們是“自然主義的”，假使我們是的話，這倒奇怪了，因爲今天我們卻比名符其實的自然主義者更使他們感到震驚和畏懼。那些可以安然讀完一本象左拉的《大地》那樣的小說的人，卻無法忍受存在主義者的小說。那些訴諸於大眾智慧的人——那是一種悲哀的智慧——發現我們的更爲悲哀。然而，又有什麼話比說“仁愛始於家庭”或者“升擢歹徒，他會反咬；將他擊倒，他則崇拜”更會使人感到嗒然若喪呢？我們都很熟習許多可以這樣引用的老話，它們的意義大抵相同—— 
      
　　 你不可反抗現存努力，你不可違反權威，你不可逾越本份，幹涉他人。或者說，任何不依從一些傳統的行爲都隻是浪漫主義；或者說不根據過去經驗的行爲，都注定要失敗的；並且由於經驗顯示出人總是不變地傾向於罪惡，所以必須有嚴厲的規則來約束，否則我們就要陷入無政府狀態了。然而，直到現在仍然有人咀嚼着這些喪氣的老話，每當他們聽到一些討厭的行爲時，就會說：“多麼象人性呀！”——就是這些重彈寫實主義老調的人，在抱怨存在主義對事物的看法太過於陰鬱。的確，他們那些過度的抗議倒使我懷疑觸怒他們的不是我們的悲觀，而是我們的樂觀。因爲追根究底，在我正要向你們解釋的學說之中有警告作用的是——人有選擇的可能性。——難道不是嗎？爲證實這點，我們必須在純哲學的水准上，把它重新研究一番。那就是我們稱爲存在主義的這個名詞，到底是什麼？
      
　　對大多數正在使用這個名詞的人，如果請他說明一下它的意義，一定總會感到極其含混不清。因爲現在它已經成爲一種流行的字眼，人們常興之所至地稱呼這個音樂家或者那個畫家是“存在主義者”。一位《光明報》的專欄作家竟自己簽名爲“存在主義者”，然而，事實上，這個名詞現在被廣泛地使用在眾多的事實上，以致它已不再具有任何意義了。這好象是由於象超現實主義這種思想一樣缺乏新的學說，於是，一班渴望詆毁和搗亂的人，都找到我們的哲學上來，實際上，在我們的學說里，他們找不出有什麼能滿足於他們的目標的。因爲事實上這在所有的學說中是最少誹謗和最爲嚴謹的：它是將爲專家和哲學家而建的一種學說。同樣的，它是易於界說的。
     　
　　這問題之所以複雜，乃是因爲存在主義者有兩派所致。一派是基督教，其中我將擧出雅斯培與馬色爾，這兩人都自稱爲天主教徒。另一派則是存在的無神論者，其中我們必須擧出海德格和法國的存在主義者以及我自己。他們的共同點則是他們都認爲存在先於本質——或者，如果你喜歡的話，也可以說是：主體必須作爲一切的起點。我們所意指的確切意義是什麼呢？

         如果人們研究一件工業制品——譬如說一本書或者切紙刀——人們就可以了解，制造它的工匠必定先有關於它的概念存乎心中。同樣地，他曾對切紙刀的概念以及先於存在的制作技巧加以注意過。這種制作的技巧是那概念的一部分，實際上，也就是定則。因此，切紙刀就成了在某種一定方法之下所制成的東西。而在另一方面它又可以有某種特定的用途，因爲我們不能想像一個人會制造一把切紙刀而不知道它的用途的。所以，對於這把切紙刀，我們可以說它的本質——也就是使它可能被制作出來以及具有意義的這種定則與性質之總和——先於它的存在。這類的切紙刀或書本就這樣注定了地呈現於我們的眼前。在這里，我們是以一種技術的觀點來觀察這個世界，所以，我們可以說制作先於存在（production  preceddes existence）。


        當我們把上帝視爲造物者時，大部分的時候，我們都把他當作超級的工匠。無論我們研究哪一種學說，不管是笛卡兒的，或者萊布尼茲的，我們多少總認爲理念先於創作，或者至少是伴隨而來，所以上帝造物的時候，他是確切地知道他正在創造什麼。因此，上帝心中人的概念亦如工匠心中切紙刀的概念。上帝根據一種程序和概念造人，恰好工匠依照一個方式和定則造切紙刀。所以，每一個個别的人都是上帝睿智中某一個概念的實現。在十八世紀的無神論哲學中，曾抛棄過上帝這個觀念，但是並沒有抛棄本質先於存在的想法。

        這種想法仍然到處可見，在狄德羅，伏爾泰甚至康德的學說中，都可以找到這種思想的存在。人具有人性，這種“人性”乃是人的概念，在每一個人身上都可以發現得到，這也就是每一個人都是這種普遍概念的一個個别的例子。在康德的思想中這種普遍性是如此的廣泛，以致森林中的野人，即還處於原始狀態中的人，以及布爾喬亞階級的人都包括到這同樣的定義中去，而且具有相同的基本性質。在這里又和上面一樣，人的本質先於我們在經驗中所遭逢到的歷史存在。

        無神論的存在主義，我就是一個代表，極爲一致地宣稱，如果上帝不存在，那麼至少有一種東西它的存在是先於它的本質的，它是在可能被任何概念所界定以前就已存在了的，這樣的東西，就是人，也就是如海德格所說的人的實在性。我們所說的存在先於本質到底是什麼意思呢？我們的意思是：人首先存在着，首先碰到各種際遇，首先活動於這世界——然後，開始限定了自己。若依存在主義者看來，一個人如果無法予以限定，那是因爲人在開始的時候還沒有成爲什麼。隻是到了後來，他才成了某種東西，他才把自己創造成他所要成爲的東西。因此，就無所謂人的天性，因爲沒有上帝來給予它一個概念。人赤裸裸地存在着，他之赤裸裸並不是他自己所想象的，而是他是他自己所意欲的——他躍進存在之後，他才意欲自己成爲什麼東西。

　　人除了自我塑造之外，什麼也不是。這是存在主義的第一個原則。也就是人們稱它爲主體性（subjectivity）並用這個字來譴責我們的。但是我們這樣說的意思，還不是指人比一塊石頭或者一張桌子更爲尊嚴？因爲我們的意思是說，人是首先就自己存在了的——人在一切之前某種自行向未來推進並自覺正在這樣推進的東西。人確實是一種具有主體生命的設計者，而不是青苔，蘭花，或是花椰菜。在這個自我設計之先，無物存在。即使在睿智的上天也沒有。
　　
　　


存在主義是一種人道主義
　　人隻有在他計劃成爲什麼時才能穫得存在，隻是希望，還不夠。因爲“希望”或者“意願”一詞，通常是指一種在我們已塑造出我們自己之後所作的一種自覺決定。我們可以希望加入一個政黨，寫一本書，或是結婚——但是在這些情形下，通常所謂“我的意願”可能是一種先驗的表現以及更自發的決定。然而，假如存在先於本質是真實的話，人就要對他自己負責。因此，存在主義的第一個作用是它使每一個人主宰他自己，把他存在的責任全然放在他自己的肩膀上。由是，當我們說人對他的本質負責時，我們並不隻是說他對他個人負責而已，而是對所有的人負責。“主體論”具有兩種意義，而我們的反對者隻是接觸到其中的一個而已。主體論一方面是指個人主體的自由，另方面則指人是無法超越人類的主體性。後者才是存在主義比較深層的意義。

        當我們說一個人選擇他自己的時候，我們的意思是指每一個人必須選擇他自己。但是由此我們也意指選擇他自己的時候，他也爲所有的人作選擇。因爲實際上，在我們選擇一個我們所想要做的人的時候，我們所作的種種努力，無非是在創造一個爲我們認爲當然的人的形象。我們在兩者之中作選擇時，同時也就是在肯定我們所選擇的對象的價值，因爲我們不能永遠選擇沒有價值的。我們所選擇的常常是較爲有價值的，同時沒有對我們更有價值的，除非對大家都更有價值。進言之，如果存在先於本質，而當我們存在的時候，我們也在創造我們的形象，則這個形象是適用於所有人類和我們所處的整個時代的。我們的責任因此較我們想象的更爲重大，因爲它關涉到人類全體。比如，假使我是一個工人，我可選擇一個基督徒的工會，而不加入一個共黨的工會。假如由於這個會員的資格，我要表示，爲人處世最好是忍讓爲先，人的國度並不在這世界上，那麼我並不是獨自一個人歸依於這個觀點。

         忍讓是我對每個人的意願，結果，我的行動也就成爲全人類的一種行爲。或者，擧一個較爲私人性的例子，我決定結婚生子，縱然這個決定隻是從我的情境，情愛，欲望中發展而出的，但在實行一夫一妻制上面，我就涉及到全人類，而不隻我自己。所以，我對自己固然有責任，對别人也有責任。同時，我也塑造了某種我所希望的人的形象，我塑造我自己，我也塑造了别人。

       這可使我們了解下面這些名詞的意義——或許有一點誇大——例如焦慮（anguish），舍棄（abandonment）和絕望（despair）。你立刻可以看出，這是非常明了的。

        首先，我們所謂的焦慮是什麼意思呢？存在主義者坦白地說人是處於焦慮之中，他的解釋是這樣的：當一個人有所行動時，他充分地自覺他不隻是選擇他所意願的，同時也是一個爲全人類裁決的立法者——在這時刻，一個人就不能從一種整體與沉重的責任感中逃避開來。有許多人確實是沒有這種焦慮。但是我們可以斷言他們僅僅是在掩飾他們的苦悶或由其中逃避開來。必然地，有許多人會以爲他們所做的事情，除了他們自己之外，和别人無關。如果你問他們，“假使每個人都這麼做又曾如何呢？”他們會聳聳肩膀回答說：“不會每個人都這麼做。”但是事實上，每一個人都應該問他自己假如每一個都象他一樣的做時，會如何呢？一個人除了自欺之外，不可能由這種煩惱的思想中逃避開去。一種自我寬恕的人，常說“不會每一個人都這麼做”。

　　但他良心上一定會感到不安的。因爲說謊的行爲蘊含着它所否定的普遍性的價值。正由於他的掩飾，焦慮憂思卻反而顯露了出來，這種焦慮，就是齊克果所謂的“亞伯拉罕的焦慮”。你知道這個故事的：一個天使命令亞伯拉罕犧牲他的兒子：假使真的有一位天使出現而且說：“你，亞伯拉罕，必須犧牲你的兒子。”那末服從就是義務，但是任何人，在這種情形下都會表示懷疑，首先要問它是否確實是天使，其次，我是否真正是亞伯拉罕。證據在哪里？某一個瘋婦說有人打電話給她，並且還給他下命令。醫生問她，“但是，對你說話的人是誰呢？”她回答說：“他說他是上帝。”

       事實上，能用什麼對她證明他是上帝呢？假若一位天使對我顯現，有什麼證據可以證明他是天使呢？或者，假如我聽到聲，誰能夠證明這聲音是來自天堂而不是來自地獄，或者是自己的潛意識，或者是某種病狀？誰能夠證明他們確是對我而說的呢？

        那麼，誰能證明我是借我的決擇把我對於人的概念來加諸全人類的適當人選呢？我無論如何都找不出任何證明的；也沒有蹟象會使我相信它。如果有一種聲音在叫喚我，我仍得自己去決定這聲音是否來自天使。如果我認爲這樣的一種行爲是好的，那也隻是我自己的選擇，說它是好的而不是壞的。

      沒有什麼證據，表示出我是亞伯拉罕，但每時每刻，我仍然被迫去扮演這些作爲範例的行爲。每一件發生於每一個人的事，就好象整個人類用眼睛注視着他的行爲，並且爲他的行爲所引導。因此每一個人應當問他自己：“我真是這樣的一個人嗎？我的行動足以引導全人類嗎？”如他不這樣問他自己，那他就在掩飾他的焦慮。很明顯地，我們在這里所提到的焦慮不是那導致無爲主義或懈怠的。這是一種爲每個負有責任的人所熟知的單純的焦慮。例如，當一個軍事長官負起攻擊的責任，而派一批相當數目的人去冒死時，那是他選擇這樣做的，並且是他一個人決定這樣做的。無疑的，他是在上級的命令下這樣做的，但是這命令極爲泛泛，必須他來加以解釋。而就在這解釋上，決定了十人，十四人，或二十個人的生命。


存在主義是一種人道主義

　　因此當他在作決定時，他不得不感到焦慮。這種焦慮是所有做領導的人都知道的。那並不阻礙他們的行動，反之，那正是構成他們行動的主要條件。因爲這行動表示他們面對着許多種可能，而當他們選擇其一時，他們就由此而知道它是有價值的。存在主義者描寫的就是這種焦慮，同時我們可以看出，這種存在主義所說的焦慮，乃是用一種對於爲它所涉及者的直接責任去解釋的。它不是一塊將我們和行動分隔的布幕，它是行動本身的一個條件。

        當我們講到舍棄（abandonment）的時候——海德格所喜歡用的一個名詞——我們隻是說上帝不存在，我們必須去對它的一切後果。存在主義是極端反對以最低的代價去廢棄上帝的俗世道德論的。約在一八八○年時，一些法國的哲學教授們企圖建立一種俗世道德論，他們這樣地說：“上帝是一個無用而浪費的假設，所以，我們廢棄他。”然而，假如我們要有道德、一個社會以及法治的世界，那麼最基本的是要嚴肅地承認某些價值。它們必須要有一種屬於它們的先驗的存在。例如，誠實，不說謊，不打妻子，撫育子女等被視爲先驗的責任，所以我們要在這個題目上略爲研討，以證明縱然上帝不存在，一切道德價值仍然同樣地存在着，仍然是附屬於一個睿智的天國上。換言之——這就是我們在法國所稱的急進主義的旨趣——假如上帝不存在，一切都不會改變；我們將重新發現同樣的誠實，進步和仁愛，同時，我們將認爲上帝是一種過時的假設，它本身會默然而逝的。相反地，存在主義者發現假如上帝不存在，則情形將是很難堪的，因爲一切從睿智的天國發現價值的可能性將隨之消逝。既然沒有無限完美的意識加以思考，那麼先驗的事物將不再有什麼用處。沒有地方寫着：“善良”存在，我們必須誠實，或者不得說謊，因爲我們身處於隻有人生存着的土地上。陀斯妥也夫斯基曾寫道：“如果上帝不曾存在，任何事情都可被允許的。”而這正是存在主義的出發點。

        假如存假如上帝不存在，任何事情確實都可被允許的，結果人就孤立無依了。因爲他無法在他自身之内和自身之外發現可以依賴的東西。他隨着發現，他是無理由可解釋的。因爲存在確是先於本質，我們就永遠不能根據天賦和特殊的人性去解釋自己的行爲；換言之，沒有什麼決定論的存在——人是自由的，人就是自由。

      另一方面，假如上帝不存在，也就沒有任何價值或命令給予我們以規範我們的行爲。因此，在我們的前後都沒有一個光輝的價值領域，都沒有任何理由或借口。我們孑然孤立，沒有任何理由可尋。這就是我所謂的人是被注定爲自由的意義。說是被注定，乃由於人並不會創造自己，然而又是自由的，自從人被抛進這個世界，他就要對他所做的任何事情負責。存在主義者不相信熱情的力量。他不同意一往向前的熱情是決定性的引導人們於行動的一道急流，因而就可以把它作爲人的一種托詞。他認爲一個人對於自己的熱情也應該負責。存在主義者不認爲一個人可以借發現什麼預兆，去幫助他決定未來行動的方向。因爲他認爲一個人在選擇的時候，就自行解釋了這預兆。所以他認爲每一個人，無須任何的支持或援助，人，是時時刻刻都注定要去創造自己的。龐其（ponge）在一篇非常精僻的論文中說過：“人就是人的未來。”（Man  is the future of  man）這話對極了。

　　隻是如果有人以爲這就是說未來乃取決於上天，上帝會知道它是什麼，那就錯了。因爲假使這樣，那就沒有未來可言了。然而，假使它的意義是：無論人現在怎麼樣，永遠有一個未來等待着他去塑造，一個等待着他而未經開辟的未來——那麼，那就對了。但是現在，人們是被舍棄的。

       爲了使你們更明白這種舍棄的狀況，我想擧出我的一個學生的情形爲例，這學生要我在下述的情景中替他找出解決的辦法。他的父親正和他的母親吵架，而且還有“通敵”的傾向。他的哥哥在一九四○年德軍侵襲時被殺，而這個青年人，懷着原始而激昂的心情，燃燒着複仇的願望。他母親和他單獨住在一起，深爲他父親叛國的行爲和長子的死亡而悲痛。她把唯一的希望寄托在這個青年人的身上。但是這個青年人這時卻處於兩種選擇之間——到英國加入自由法軍，或留在母親身邊幫助她生活。他十分清楚他母親是爲着他而活，他的消失——可能是死亡——會使她陷入絕望之中。同時他具體而真實地感覺到，他爲他母親所做的任何行爲，將會有助於她生存下去的確實的效果。然而他爲戰爭所做的任何事情，將如水之滲入沙中，毫無作用。

　　例如，要到英國去，則經過西班牙時，他必須在西班牙的營中待一段不能確定的時間，在到達英國或者阿爾及利亞時，他可能會被安插到一個機構里去，以補充一個名額。結果，他發覺到他自己遭遇着兩種完全不同的行動方式：一種具體而直接，但隻爲了一個人；另一種則爲了一個無限大的目標——國家全體——但也因此而模糊不清，而且可能中途受阻。同時，他也猶豫於兩種道德之間，一方面是同情個人情感的道德；另一方面則是範圍廣泛而真實性值得懷疑的道德。他必須在這兩者中作一個選擇。什麼東西能幫助他來作這個選擇呢？基督教的教條能夠嗎？不。基督教的教條說：行爲要仁慈，要愛護你的鄰居，要爲别人犧牲自己，要選擇最難走的路徑，等等。但哪一條是最難走的路徑呢？對於什麼樣的人，我們要付出更多的兄弟之愛呢？愛國人士還是母親？哪一個是更爲有用的目標：廣泛地爲整個社會而奮鬥呢？還是幫助一個特定的人物生活下去呢？誰能夠先驗地對此作一個答案？沒有一個人能夠。這在任何倫理經典中也沒有答案。康德的倫理學上說：永遠不要把别人當作一個手段，而應當作一個目的。不錯，如果我留下來跟母親在一起，我把她視爲目的而不是手段。但是由於這個做法，我就處於視那些爲我作戰的人爲手段的危險中，反過來看也是真的，如果我去幫助作戰的人，我就視他們爲目的，但卻處於以我母親爲手段的危險中。

       如果價值是不確定的，如果它們還是太抽象而不能決定特殊的事件，或者在考慮之中的具體事件，那我們除了信任我們的直覺之外就别無所遺了。這就是這青年所面臨的；當我看到他時，他說：“最後，隻有依賴感覺了。真正推動我的方向就是我要選擇的那一個。如果，我感覺我深愛我的母親而可爲她犧牲一切——我複仇的意志，我的行動與冒險的熱望——那我就留下來跟她在一起。反之，如果我覺得我對母親的愛不夠深，那我就走。”但是，一個人如何估計感情的力量呢？他對他母親情感的價值是由他陪伴着她這事實所真實地決定的。我可以說我愛護某一個朋友到可以爲他犧牲某種數目的金錢，但除非我已經這樣做了，否則我無法證明。如果我真的留下來了，我可以說：“我對我母親的愛足以使我留下來。”我隻能以我是否實行限定和承認過的行爲來測量我的情感力量。但是，那時如果我依賴這種情感來判斷我的行爲，我就覺得我自己被陷於一個循環論的虛偽中去。

        而且，紀德說得好，逢場作戲的情感和認真的情感是兩種幾乎不能區别的東西。決定留在母親身邊表示我對我母親的愛和演一幕喜劇，而其結果隻是表明我這樣演過了，——  這兩件事情幾乎是一樣的。換句話說，感覺是以我們所做的行爲而形成的。因此，我不能把它當作行爲的指導而求教於它。這也就是說我既不能從我的自身找出真正的行爲動機，也不能從倫理學中期望有指導着我行爲的規則。你可以說這個青年人的確至少是到教授那里去征求意見。但是，擧一個例說，假使你去一位牧師那里征求意見，那就是你已經選擇了這個牧師。至少你已經或多或少知道了他會給你什麼樣的勸告。換句話說，選擇一個勸告者仍然是自我選擇。如果你是一個基督教徒，你會說：去問牧師，但牧師有摺衷派的，有固執己見的，有見風轉舵的，你要選擇哪一類的呢？假使這青年人選擇了固執己見的牧師，或是摺衷派中的一個，他必已事先決定了他將穫得的忠告。

　　同樣地，他來找我，也已曉得我會給他什麼樣的意見，而我隻能給他一個答複，你是自由的，因此選擇罷——這就是說，創造。在一般的道德中，沒有任何規則可以告訴你必須做什麼；在這世界上，沒有任何事情是確定的。天主教徒會回答說：“啊！但他們是確定的呀！”很好，可是無論如何仍然是我自己必須解釋這些事情。當我在獄中的時候，我認識了一個有點特殊的人。他是一個耶穌會的會員，他是在下述情況下成爲會員的：他一生曾遭到一連串十分嚴重的挫摺。他的父親在他童年時去世，此後他就陷入了窮困之中，有個教會學校曾贈給他一個免費的學籍，在學校里他一直以爲是因爲受了憐憫而被收容的，事實上他被剝奪了許多使兒童感到愉快的名聲和榮耀。後來，大約十八歲的時候，他因愛情而痛苦，最後在二十歲的時候——本來是非常微小的事，但這已經是他生命的杯子中流出的最後的一滴了——他軍事考試失敗了。於是這年輕人自認是徹底的失敗者。這是一個征象——但是什麼征象呢？他可以在痛苦和絕望中尋找避難所。但他把它當作是無法於塵世成功的征象，隻有那些聖潔的、忠誠的宗教的皈依，對他而言是可以企求的。他把他的事蹟解釋爲上帝的旨意，要他成爲聖職的會員。誰能懷疑他對這征象的決定不是他自己的呢？而且隻能是他的而已。一個人可以由一連串的失敗中引申出極不相同的結論——擧例說，就象他最好去做一個木匠或者一個革命黨員。爲了解釋此一征象，他負有全部的責任。這就是“舍棄”的意義，我們有已決定我們自己的存在。而焦慮就因此和舍棄同在。
       
　　至於“絕望”，它的意義非常簡單。它隻是指我們把自己限制於我們的意志和使行爲實現的可能性内。每當一個人有所欲求的時候，總是有這些可能性的因素。如果我期望我的朋友前來看我，他可能坐火車或者電車前來，我預期火車將會在約定的時間到達，或者電車將不會出軌。我還是處在可能性的領域中。但是，嚴格說來，除了和我們的行爲有關之外，我們並不寄望於任何其他可能性之中。在那考慮中的可能性不再影響我的行爲時，我就必得不在意了。因爲沒有上帝及預先的安排可以使這世界及其一切可能性適合我的意志。當笛卡兒說：“征服你自己有甚於征服全世界。”他的意思究竟還是一樣——那就是我們沒有希望也得行動。

      無爲主義是說下面這句話的人的態度：“讓别人來做我所不能做的事情。”但我擺在你面前的理論恰恰與此相反，因爲它宣稱除行爲之外就沒有其他真實的了。誠然，它還意含着“人除了他意圖成爲什麼之外，就空無所有，隻有他體現自己時，他才存在。因此，他除了是行爲的總和之外就空無所有，除了生命之外就空無所有。”因此，我們知道爲什麼在某些人對我們的教訓感到震驚。因爲有許多人在他們的痛苦之中隻有一個支持他們的念頭，那就是作如是想：“環境對我不利，我本是成爲一個比我目前更爲有價值的人。我承認我從來沒有一個情人或好友，但這是因爲我從來沒有遇見過值得這樣對待的男人或女人。如果我還沒有一本好書，那是因爲我沒有時間寫。如果我還沒有生兒育女，那是因爲我不曾發現值得跟我生活在一起的人。所以在我身上是保持着很大的能力、愛好，以及潛在力，未曾使用過但卻全然存在着的，這些就使我具有了不能由我的行爲推測出來的價值。”但是，對於存在主義者來說，除了戀愛的行爲之外便沒有戀愛，除戀愛中所顯示的之外便沒有戀愛的可能，同樣，除非已經在藝術品中表現出來的以外就沒有天才。普羅斯特的天才乃是普羅斯特作品的總和。

　　拉辛的天才就在他一連串的悲劇之中，除此之外就别無所有了。爲什麼我們要將拉辛的寫作能力歸之於那未寫出的作品呢？在生命中，一個人創造他自己，描繪自己的畫像，除了這畫像之外就别無所有。無疑地，這種想法對於那些在生命中還沒有成就的人來說是不舒服的。但是在另一方面，它使人知道隻有真實才是可靠的。夢想、期待，以及希望給人所下的定義隻是欺人的夢想，幻滅的希望，以及未實現的期望，這就是說，它們給他下的定義是否定的，而非肯定的。然而，當一個人說：“除了你的生活之外，你就空無所有。”這並不是說一個藝術家隻能以他的藝術品來判斷他，因爲還有許多的事物對他之爲人的定義而言，具有極大的意義。我們的意思是說，一個人隻是一連串的行動而已，因此他是構成這些行動的總和、組織，以及多種關係。因此可以知道人們指責我們的，並非因爲我們的悲觀主義，而是因爲我們樂觀主義的嚴肅性。假使人們指責我們的小說，在這些小說中我們描寫那些卑鄙、軟弱、怯懦以及有時明顯罪惡的人物，這並不是隻因爲這些人物是卑鄙、軟弱、怯懦或罪惡。因爲假定就象左拉一樣，我們指出這些人物的行爲乃是由於遺傳所引起，或是由於他們的環境所引起的，或是由於決定的因素，不論是屬於心靈的還是有機體的。人們將確信地說：“你看我們就是這樣，沒有人可改變任何事情。”

       但是對一個存在主義者而言，當他描寫一個懦夫的時候，會指出這個懦夫須負他自己懦怯的責任。他並不是因爲有一顆懦怯的心，或肺，或者大腦才這樣的。他並不是因爲生理上的器官的因素才這樣的。他之所以這樣乃是他的行爲使他成爲一個懦夫。並無所謂懦怯的本性，雖然有所謂神經質或懶散的脾性，以及富於感情等等。但一個貧血的人卻並不因此而爲懦夫，因爲造成懦夫的是臣服或退讓。而脾性並不是一種行爲。一個懦夫乃是由於他的行爲所決定。人們模糊地，且恐懼地感覺到的是如我們所說的懦夫之爲懦夫乃是一種罪惡。人們寧願生而爲懦夫或英雄。對於“自由之路”（Ｃｈｅｍｉｎｓｄ……一個真實的處境時——例如，我是一個有性能力的生物，能夠與異性的生物發生關係並生育子女——我就不得不選擇對它的態度，同時在任何一方面，我對這選擇負有責任，在約束了我自己時，也就約束了全人類。甚至假如我的選擇不是被先驗的價值所決定，它與放任仍然沒有一點關係。如果有人以爲這隻是紀德自由行動學說的翻版，那麼這就是他不了解這個學說與紀德的學說間巨大的不同。紀德不知道處境（situation）是什麼，他的行動隻是純粹的放任。
　　
　　依照我們的觀點， 正好相反，人乃是在一個有組織的處境中發現了自己，在這處境中，他是自我含蘊的，他的選擇包含了整個人類，同時他也不能避免選擇，不論他是否必須保持獨身，或者他必須結婚而不生子，或者他必須結婚同時生兒育女。在任何情況之下，不管他如何選擇，在這種處境之下，他是不可能不負完全責任的。毫無疑問地，他並不根據任何預先建立的價值系統來選擇，但是指責他放任是不公平的。我們寧願說，道德的選擇與一件藝術品的構成是可以相比擬的。

　　 但在這里，我必須立即離開正題而把情形說個清楚，那就是我們並不是在提倡一種直覺的道德，因爲我們的反對者會狡猾地用這個來指責我們。我之所以提到藝術品，隻是作爲一個比較而已。明白了這一點，當一個藝術家畫一幅畫時，會有人因爲他沒有根據先天建立的規則而責備他嗎？會有人問他要畫的是什麼畫呢？正如每個人都知道的，他不必畫任何預先規定好的圖畫。藝術家之作畫和此畫之必須要畫，都完全是他要這樣做的。正如每個人都知道的，這並沒有什麼先天的美學價值，但在創造的過程中，在創造的意志和完成的藝術品之間，價值就會出現。沒有人可以說出明天的繪畫是什麼樣子，隻有在畫成之後，我們才能夠評斷它。這和道德又有何幹？我們也是處在和這相似的創造處境中。我們從來不說一件藝術品是不負責任的。當我們談論畢卡索的畫時，我們知道得很清楚，這畫是在他畫這畫的時候變成這樣子的，而他的畫就是他整個生命的一部分。
      
　　


薩特讀本
　　在道德的範疇内也是一樣的。這一點在藝術和道德中是相通的，在這兩者之中我們都和創造與發明有關。我們不能先驗地決定什麼是應該做的。由那位來找我的學生的例子中，你已清楚地看出來，不管他向哪一種倫理系統求助，康德學派的或者其他學派的，他都不能找到任何的指示。他不得不爲自己發明的一套法律。當然我們不能說這個人在選擇留下和他母親相處時——就是接受了溫情，個人的熱愛，以及具體的仁愛爲他道德的基礎——造成了一個不負責任的選擇。假使他選擇到英國去的那種犧牲時，我們也不能這樣說。人塑造他自己；他並不是已經被塑造好了的。他因他的道德選擇而塑造自己，他不得不選擇一個道德，這些都是環境給與他的壓力。我們隻能在發現人和他的行爲關係時，才能爲人下個界說。因此，指責我們的選擇爲不負責任的乃屬荒謬。

       第二，人們對我們說：“你們不能判斷别人。”這從某一個觀點說是對的，但若從另外一個觀點說則又是錯誤的。當一個人清楚而虔誠地選擇了他的目的和行爲時，不管他的目的是什麼，他不可能再選擇另外的一個，就這一點來說是對的。就我們不相信進步來說也是對的。進步意味着改良，但人永遠是一樣的，面對着一個永遠變動的處境，在這種處境中，選擇仍舊是選擇。自從以前奴隸制和反奴隸制的選擇之後——例如美國的南北戰爭，一直到今天我們在共和政體與共產主義之間的選擇爲止，道德的問題都未變更。

       不論如何，我已說過了，我們能夠判斷，因爲我們會爲别人而選擇，我們會爲别人而選擇了自身，人們能夠判斷，首先——可能這不是價值的判斷，而是邏輯的判斷——在某些情形之下，選擇乃是根據一個錯誤，而在其他的情形下，則系根據事實。我們可以判斷一個人說他欺騙了自己。既然我們已說過人的處境爲自由選擇的，沒有理由，沒有助力，任何以熱情爲借口而得到庇護，或者揑造某些決定論的教條的人，都是自欺者。有人或許會反對：“爲什麼他不能選擇欺騙他自己？”我的答複是我不以道德去判斷他，我隻以他的自欺爲一種錯誤。這里人們不能避免宣布一個真理的判斷。自欺顯然是虛假的，因爲它是人的行爲之完全自由的掩飾。同樣，根據這一點，如果我說某些價值有賴於我，這仍然是自欺。如果我意欲這些價值，同時又說它們欺騙了我，我乃與我自己處於矛盾之中。如果任何一個人問我：“假使我要欺騙自己又怎麼樣呢？”我回答說：“你沒有爲什麼不可以這樣的理由，但我得聲明在這樣做，而態度的嚴格一貫才是所謂忠誠。”而且，我也可以宣稱一種道德的判斷。因爲我認爲對於現實環境而言，自由除了本身之外，沒有其他的目的。當一個人一旦見到價值依賴於他自身時，在這種被棄的情形之下，他能企求一事，那就是所有價值基礎的自由。這並不意指他企求抽象的自由，隻是說忠誠的人其行爲最大的意義就是他本身具有尋求自由的動力。一個革命社會中的人企求某些現實的目標，這就包含有對於自由的企求，但這自由乃被企求於社會之中。

      我們在特殊的環境中，並且透過特殊的環境爲自由而企求自由。在這種自由的企求中，我們發現這些完全依賴於别人的自由，而别人的自由也依賴於我們本身的自由。顯然地，自由就作爲人之定義而言，並不有賴他人，但一旦有所行動時，我便不得不在企求一己之自由時也企求他人的自由。除非我把别人的自由也當作我的目的，否則我就不能把它當作我的目的。因此，當我完全真誠地認識人是一種存在先於本質的生物，同時也是一種在任何情況下隻得企求他自己的自由生物時，我同時也感覺到我不能不企求别人的自由。因此，在這種包含於自由本身中的自由之企求的名義下，我可以判決那些想自他們本身隱匿掉他們存在之完全自發的本性及完全自由的人。那些以莊嚴或決定論爲借口而隱匿其完全自由的人們，我將稱之爲懦夫。另外那些想表示他們的存在爲必然，而其實隻是地球上人類的偶然現象時，我將稱之爲鄙夫。但除了嚴格真實的根據之外，懦夫和鄙夫不可混爲一談。因此，雖然道德的内容是變動不居的，道德的某些形式則是普遍的。

      康德說自由對其本身以及對别人的自由而言都是一種意志。這點是可以同意的。但是他以爲形式與普遍性已足以構成道德體系。我們的意見卻正相反，當我們限定一個行動時，過於抽象的原則是不中用的。再把那個學生的情形擧出來作爲例子：根據何種權威，何種道德的教訓，你以爲他做心安理得的決定，是抛棄他的母親呢？還是留下來和她在一起？沒有一點判斷的根據，實際情形是具體的，因此也是不可預測的，它永遠必須是創造的。唯一重要的事是去穫知這創造是不是借着自由之名而完成的。

      擧例來說，讓我們研究下面的兩個個案，那你就會明白，不管他們是如何的不同，他們是很相似的。讓我們以《黍須上的磨坊》（The Mill on the  Floss）爲例。在這里，我們發現有一位年輕的女人，美姬•特莉茀，她是熱情之價值的化身，並且她自己也知道這一點。她愛上了一年輕人叫史帝芬的，但這個青年已經和另外一個不出色的女孩訂了婚。 
   　於是這位美姬•特莉茀並不冒然追尋幸福，反而爲了人類團結的緣故，選擇了犧牲自己一途而放棄了她所愛的人。另一方面，在斯丹達爾《卡爾特修道院》（Chartreuse de  Parme）中的桑索茀莉娜則相信熱情使人具有真正的價值，那麼她就會宣稱偉大的熱情使它的犧牲成爲正當的，而且必須選擇阻止史帝芬與他訂了婚的醜小鴨的婚姻之愛。她爲了實現她的幸福將不惜犧牲一切，正如史丹達爾所指出的，如果生命對她如此需求的話，她會爲了熱情的緣故而犧牲。這里我們面臨了兩個迥然不同的道德，但我們認爲它們是相同的，因爲支配於兩個情形中的都是自由。你可以想象兩種效果完全相同的態度，一種是那女子會斷情以放棄她的愛人，而另一種是那女子爲了滿足性欲，故意對她愛人以前的婚約不聞不問。從外表上看來，我們援引的這兩個例子似乎相同，然而事實則不然。桑索茀莉娜的態度和美姬的態度比和一個一味貪欲的人的態度更爲相近。這樣，你們就可以明白，第二個反對既是真的又是假的。人們可以選擇任何事情，但是隻能是在自由行動的範疇之内才可以。

       第三個反對說：“你一隻手把它拿來，另一隻手又把它送出去。”這意思就是說“由於你自己選擇，所以，你的價值觀就不是嚴肅的”。關於這一點，我也隻好抱歉地說那隻能如此。但是，如果我摒除了天父，那麼一定有某個人來創造價值。事實既是如此，我們也隻好接受。而且，說我們創造了價值，其意也不過是如此而已。因爲生命中無所謂先天的意義。生命被生活過了，它才有意義。然而使之有意義都是你的任務。它的意義也隻是你所選擇的而已。因此，你可以明白這才有創造一個人類社會的可能。我曾經被指責爲主張存在主義就是人文主義之一。人們會對我說：“但是你在你的《嘔吐》中，曾經說過人文主義者是錯誤的，你甚至也嘲笑過某種形式的人文主義，現在你爲什麼又回到這上面來呢？”事實上，人文主義這個名詞具有兩個極端不同的意義。人們可以把人文主義視作主張以人本身爲目的及以人爲最高價值的一種理論。這一意義的人文主義可以在高克多的《環游世界八十小時》這個故事中看到。書中的一個人物，當他坐着飛機飛越高山時，他說：“人是偉大的！”這就是說雖然我自己沒有制造飛機，但是我卻身受這種特殊的發明的好處。而我個人，就作爲一個人而言，可以認爲我自己對某些人的成就也有關涉並以此自豪。這也就是說我們可以因某些人的特殊成就而把此種價值歸之於人。這種人文主義是荒謬的，因爲隻有狗或者馬才可以處於能夠對人作普遍判斷之地位，而宣說人是偉大的，但他們永遠不會傻到做這種事——至少，就我所知道是如此的。人對作判斷也是不可能的。存在主義者摒除任何屬於這一類的判斷；一個存在主義者永不會以爲人是一個結局，因爲人還等着被決定。

    　 同時，我們也無權相信我們可以對人性建立起某種禮讚，如同孔德一樣。對人性之禮讚最後會產生孔德式的人文主義，自我隔絕——我們必須這樣說——最後會產生法西斯主義。我們不要這一類的人文主義。但是這名詞又有另外的一種意義，此意義的基本意思是這樣的：人永遠處於其自身之外；那是在投射和失落自己的時候，他才使人存在。而在另外一方面，也是由於對超越目的的追求，才使他本身有存在的可能。因爲人是如此自我超越的，也隻有對這種自我超越才能把握得住東西，他自己才是他超越性的核心。除了人之世界外，别無其他的世界。此一人的世界乃是人的主觀的世界。這種構成人之要素的超越關係（不是說上帝是超越的，而是說是自我超越的）和主觀性（意即人不是自我隔絕而是永遠呈現於人的世界之中）才是我們所說的存在意義的人文主義，這就是人文主義，因爲我們提醒人，除了他自己之外别無立法者。他本身在這樣被棄的情況下，必須自我決定。也因爲我們指出由於我們經常追求我們自身以外的一個目的，這個目的就是一種解說或者某種特殊的體認，而不是由於回返自己，人才會自覺爲真正的人。
       
　　從這些研討中，你就可以明白沒有什麼比人們對我們的抗議更爲不公平的了。存在主義隻是經由一貫的無神論的立場上來尋求充分結論的一種企圖而已。它的目的一點也不是要把人推入絕望之中。假使人們對絕望意指——就象基督徒那樣——爲一種無信仰的態度，則存在主義者的絕望就有點不同了。存在主義不是要耗盡精力以證明上帝不存在的那種無神論。它隻是說，就算上帝存在的話，它的觀點也不會變在與否並不是真正的問題。人所需要的是去重新發現他自己，是去了解沒有什麼東西能夠從他的自身中拯救他，就算有上帝存在的確切證據也不能夠的。在這個意義上說，存在主義是樂觀的。這是一個關於行動的學說，而隻有以自欺，以他們自己所解釋的絕望來和我們所解釋的絕望相混，基督徒們才可以把我們描述爲沒有希望的。