JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

1905 – 1980 · Existentialism · UPSC Philosophy Optional

Stage 1 · Philosophical Background

The philosopher who dared to say 'I am an existentialist'

Condemned to Be Free
In the smoky cafés of post-war Paris, Jean-Paul Sartre stood up and declared: “I am an
existentialist.” With those words, he gave the whole movement its name and its sharpest
voice.
Sartre took the torch from three great thinkers and reshaped it completely.
From Kierkegaard he took the lonely, passionate individual who must choose for himself.
From Husserl he borrowed the idea that consciousness is always directed toward
something — intentionality — but he threw away Husserl’s pure Transcendental Ego as an
unnecessary ghost. From Heidegger he accepted the deep question of Being, but turned it
toward human freedom instead.
At the very foundation of Sartre’s philosophy stood a clear, cold premise: God does not
exist.
This was not a sad conclusion reached after long searching. It was the starting point. And
from this absence, everything followed with ruthless honesty.
Because there is no God, there is no pre-written purpose for human life. As Sartre
famously said: “Existence precedes essence.” You are born first — thrown into the world
with no instruction manual. Only after that do you create your own meaning through the
choices you make.
In his novel Nausea, the hero Roquentin looks at an ordinary chestnut tree and suddenly
feels sick. Everything appears strange, meaningless, and absurd. There is no divine order
holding the world together. Only raw, brute existence.
This leads to Sartre’s most famous and terrifying claim: Man is condemned to be free.
We are absolutely free — and therefore absolutely responsible. There are no excuses. Not
society, not our past, not human nature. Every moment we are forced to choose who we
will be. Even choosing not to choose is a choice.
In Being and Nothingness and his lecture Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre laid it all
out with brilliant clarity. The human being is a “nothing” at the center of the world — a
freedom that must constantly invent itself in a universe that does not care.
Sartre had taken existentialism to its peak. He turned the anxiety of Kierkegaard, the pure
seeing of Husserl, and the deep questioning of Heidegger into a powerful call:
You are free.
You are responsible.
Now choose — and live with the consequences.
 If God does not exist, there is no fixed human nature, no predetermined purpose,
no divine plan. We arrive in the world and must create ourselves from nothing.
This is Sartre's Copernican revolution in philosophy.

Stage 2 · Existence Precedes Essence

The Copernican revolution in philosophy of human nature

Sartre's most famous and most quoted doctrine: Existence Precedes Essence. This is
called the punch line of existentialism — and understanding it precisely is essential for
UPSC.

Traditional View: Essence Precedes Sartre's Revolution: Existence

Existence Precedes Essence
For all ordinary objects, the idea (essence) For human beings, existence comes first —
comes first. we arrive in the world without a fixed
Example — Knife: A craftsman has the nature or purpose.
concept of a knife (cutting) → then We exist first. Then we choose. Then we
produces the object. The purpose defines create our essence through our choices
the object before it exists. and actions.
For theists: God creates human beings with There is no God who designed human
a fixed nature and purpose. Essence nature. No fixed purpose we must fulfil. We
(human nature) precedes existence. define ourselves.
Result: Human nature is fixed, destiny is Result: Human nature is self-created.
determined. Freedom is total and inescapable.

This reversal has profound consequences. If human beings have no fixed essence — no
God-given nature, no biological determinism that fixes who they are — then they are
radically free. They create themselves through their choices. What a person is, is what
they have done and chosen. Identity is not given; it is made.

Material objects — a stone, a chair, a knife — have their essence defined before they exist
(by the craftsman's intention). Human beings are the one kind of entity for which this is
reversed. We exist first, in a world we did not choose to enter, without any manual of
instructions — and then we must figure out, through living, who we are.
Existence is self-making-in-a-situation. What makes a human being who they are
is not their type but what they make of themselves — who they become.

Stage 3 · Theory of Consciousness and Nothingness

Consciousness is nothing — and that is everything

Sartre's theory of consciousness, drawn from Husserl but radically transformed, is the
engine of his entire system. Unlike Descartes, Sartre insists that consciousness is not a
substance, not a thing, not an object. It is pure activity — an act of self-transcending
awareness that has no fixed content of its own.
From this follows one of Sartre's most original and important doctrines: Nothingness
(Néant). Consciousness introduces nothingness into the world — not in the sense of logical
negation, but as the lived experience of absence and lack.

Concept Explanation

Traditional Nothingness = non-existence, logical negation, the opposite of

meaning being.

Nothingness = awareness of lacking. It is not logical negation but

Sartre's meaning
a lived experience of absence.

Consciousness Only conscious beings can experience absence. A stone cannot

introduces it notice that something is missing. Humans can — and do.

Entering a café to meet Pierre — and finding he is not there. The

The café example absence of Pierre haunts the space. This nothingness is real and
produced by consciousness.

Nothingness is what keeps consciousness permanently open.

Why it matters Because I am aware of what I lack, I can imagine alternatives —
and choose them. Nothingness is the root of freedom.

Consciousness can only be explained on the basis of nothingness.

Nothingness and
And only conscious existences (for-itself) can eliminate their
consciousness
lacking. This is why nothingness is necessary for existence.

This analysis makes consciousness and nothingness inseparable. Sartre famously said:
consciousness can only be explained on the basis of nothingness. If the conscious
existences of the world want to maintain their consciousness, then nothingness is
necessary. Only because human beings experience lack — feel what is missing, imagine
what could be otherwise — are they free to choose and create.

Stage 4 · Ontology — Being-in-itself and Being-for-itself

Two modes of being — the fixed and the free

Sartre's fundamental ontology in Being and Nothingness distinguishes two irreducible
modes of existence. Everything that exists falls into one of these two categories — and the
difference between them is absolute:

Being-in-Itself (En-soi) Being-for-Itself (Pour-soi)

The mode of existence of objects, The mode of existence of

What it is
things, the material world consciousness — human existence

Complete, fixed, determinate — is Open, incomplete, self-

Nature
what it is transcending — is what it is not

Consciousn None — no awareness, no All — pure awareness, freedom,

ess creativity, no possibility self-creation
 Stone, chair, tree, hammer, coffee Every human being — existence
Examples
cup before essence

All potentiality — can convert into

Potentiality No potentiality — it simply is
actuality

Cannot change itself — forever Cannot be complete — forever

Problem
what it is becoming

Wants to become Being-in-itself-

Impossible
— for-itself = God. This desire is
ideal
impossible.

The crucial consequence: human beings desperately want to be both simultaneously. We

want to be free (for-itself) and yet complete and secure (in-itself). We want to be pure
consciousness and yet have a fixed, permanent identity. This is the desire to become
Being-in-itself-for-itself — which Sartre identifies as the impossible ideal, equivalent to
God. Since God does not exist, this desire can never be satisfied. Human existence is
permanently torn between freedom and the desire for fixity.
Man is a useless passion — he desires to be God (in-itself-for-itself), and this
desire can never be fulfilled. This is the fundamental structure of human
existence.

Stage 5 · Radical Freedom — Condemned to be Free

Freedom is not a gift — it is a sentence

Freedom is the absolute centre of Sartre's philosophy. It is not one value among others —
it is the condition of all values, the ground of all choices, the defining characteristic of
human existence. And it is inescapable.

Dimension of
Explanation
Freedom

Man is completely free for all actions — no external force

Radical freedom
determines what he does or who he becomes.

One restriction Man is not free to take birth. He is thrown into existence without
only choice. This is the one limit — the ultimate paradox.

Not choosing is a Even refusing to decide is a decision. Silence, passivity, following

choice others — all are choices for which the person is responsible.

Freedom =
In every situation, human beings have alternatives. Choosing one
selection among
means responsibility for all consequences.
alternatives

Even following If a man follows the directives of others, he is enjoying freedom —

orders is a choice it is his decision to follow. Sartre removes all external excuses.

Freedom is not a gift — it is a burden. The person did not choose

Condemned to be
to be free; yet they are absolutely responsible for everything they
free
do with that freedom.
Man is completely free for all actions — but he is not free to take birth. This is the one
restriction over his freedom, and Sartre calls it the ultimate paradox. We are thrown into
the world without choice; from that moment on, everything else is our responsibility. 'We
are left alone, without excuse.'

Sartre's most historically resonant statement about freedom came from his experience of
the French Resistance during World War II. He observed that, paradoxically, the French
people under Nazi occupation had never felt freer — because every moment demanded an
absolute choice: collaborate or resist, speak or be silent, act or be complicit. External
constraint strips away the comfortable illusion that we have no choice. We always have a
choice.
Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet
is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into this world, he is
responsible for everything he does.

Stage 6 · Anguish, Abandonment and Despair

The three moods of freedom

If freedom is total and inescapable, how does it feel to live it? Sartre identifies three
fundamental emotional responses to the human condition — not as symptoms of
weakness but as the authentic recognition of what freedom means:

Experience Meaning Key point

The lived awareness of total

freedom and responsibility. When I Anguish is the authentic response
Anguish choose, I choose for all of to freedom — not a pathology to
humanity — the weight of this escape.
produces anguish.

The recognition that there is no 'We are left alone, without

Abandonmen God, no fixed human nature, no excuse.' No God, no nature, no
t moral guide-in-the-sky. We are left authority can make our decisions
utterly alone with our freedom. for us.

The acceptance that the world

'Act without hope' — not
may not cooperate with our plans.
pessimism, but the refusal to
Despair We can only rely on what is within
depend on factors outside our
our control — our own choices and
freedom.
actions.

Most people cannot bear these three moods. Anguish, abandonment and despair are too
heavy. The response of most human beings is to flee from them — to pretend they are not
free, that their choices were forced, that someone else is responsible. This flight is Bad
Faith.
 Stage 7 · Bad Faith — Self-Deception about Freedom

The lie we tell ourselves

Bad Faith (Mauvaise Foi) is one of Sartre's most practically important and widely
applicable concepts — and one of the most frequently examined in UPSC. It is the act of
denying one's own freedom through self-deception. Unlike ordinary lying (deceiving
others), Bad Faith is lying to oneself — and the liar and the deceived are the same person.

Sartre provides three famous examples, each illuminating a different dimension of Bad
Faith:

What is being
Example Situation The Bad Faith
denied

He acts as if being a He is more than a

A waiter performs his
waiter is his entire waiter. He chose this
role with rigid precision
The Waiter being — as if he has role. He can leave. He
— every gesture,
no choice but to be denies his own
movement perfect.
exactly this. transcendence.

A prisoner attempts to He ignores the

The freedom and
escape jail by deceiving existence of other
The reality of others —
others — pretending human beings as
Prisoner treating them as
compliance while conscious, free
objects, not subjects.
planning escape. agents like himself.

She refuses to
A woman on a first date
acknowledge the Her own freedom to
ignores the man's
situation — treating respond — she avoids
Male & obvious intentions —
her hand as a mere the choice by
Female treating his hand-
object, not an pretending no choice
holding as purely
extension of her exists.
platonic.
consciousness.

The pattern in all three cases is identical: the person is aware (at some level) of their
freedom but refuses to acknowledge it. They treat themselves as a thing — as being-in-
itself — rather than as a consciousness — being-for-itself. The waiter pretends to be only a
waiter. The woman pretends her hand is only an object. All three evade the burden of
choice by pretending no choice exists.

Bad faith is paradoxical: it is itself a choice — the choice to deny that one is choosing. This
is why Sartre says the strong and committed human beings never go in the direction of
Bad Faith but always fight with the rising negative conditions.
Bad faith is not just a moral failing — it is a metaphysical one. It is a lie about the
nature of human existence itself. It is the attempt to be a thing when you are a
consciousness.

Stage 8 · Authenticity — Embracing Freedom

The authentic life — chosen, responsible, honest
Authentic existence is the opposite of Bad Faith. It is the decision to acknowledge one's
freedom fully — to accept that one is the author of one's choices, that no external
authority (God, nature, society, role) determines what one does, and that every choice
carries the full weight of responsibility.

Authenticity does not mean living without anxiety, abandonment or despair. Those are
permanent features of the human condition. Authenticity means living with them honestly
— refusing to flee into self-deception, embracing the burden of freedom, and creating
values through genuine commitment.
Sartre was clear that authenticity is not a comfortable state. It requires constant vigilance
against the temptation of Bad Faith — the ever-present desire to become a thing, to have
a fixed identity, to be defined by one's role or circumstances rather than one's choices.

Stage 9 · Being-for-Others — Hell is Other People

The Look that turns me into an object

Sartre's analysis of intersubjectivity — how we relate to other people — is one of the
darkest and most controversial aspects of his philosophy. Where Husserl had hoped that
multiple transcendental egos could share a common world through intersubjectivity,
Sartre sees the encounter with the Other as fundamentally conflictual.

My existence — Being-for-itself The Look — Being-for-others

I am pure freedom — open, self-creating, When another person sees me, I suddenly
transcendent. I constitute the world experience myself as an object — fixed,
through my consciousness. judged, defined from outside.
Example: I am peeping through a keyhole Example: Someone catches me peeping —
— absorbed in the act, pure consciousness, I am suddenly 'the peeper', defined,
no self-awareness. shameful, objectified.

The three dimensions of Being-for-others that Sartre identifies in the pre-class notes are
important for UPSC. Being-in-itself has no consciousness. Being-for-itself is the conscious
human being. Being-for-others is the dimension created when another consciousness
encounters me: I am seen. Being seen turns me into an object — I experience my freedom
as limited, my identity as imposed from outside.

This is the meaning of Sartre's famous line from No Exit: 'Hell is other people.' It does not
mean that other people are unpleasant. It means that other people's gaze permanently
threatens to reduce me to an object — to fix my identity without my consent. The
presence of the Other is the permanent threat to my freedom.
Hell is other people — not because they are evil, but because their consciousness
can objectify mine. The Look strips me of my transcendence and makes me a
thing in someone else's world.
 Stage 10 · Theory of Self — The Self as Project

You are what you do

Sartre's theory of self follows directly from his ontology and his doctrine of freedom. The
self is not a substance (Descartes), not a bundle of perceptions (Hume), not a
transcendental ego (Husserl). It is a continuous self-creation through choice and action.

Dimension Descartes Hume Husserl Heidegger Sartre

Thinking Continuous
Nature of substance Bundle of Transcendent Pure activity, self-
self (res perceptions al Ego no substance creation /
cogitans) project

Foundatio Reason — Pure Intentional Freedom

Experience
n cogito consciousness consciousness and choice

No —
Yes — No — no Yes — constantly
Permanen No — ego is a
enduring permanent universal recreated
t? construction
substance self structure through
choice

God does
not exist —
Proved by Cannot be Not Not a central
God's role that is the
reason proved addressed concern
starting
point

Self IS
Transcendent
Self and Not Consciousnes freedom —
Not central al Ego
freedom addressed s structured condemned
constitutes
to choose

For Sartre, there is no pre-given self waiting to be discovered. The self is a project —
something that is always in the process of becoming, never complete, never finished until
death. 'Existence is self-making-in-a-situation.' What I am is constituted by what I have
chosen, what I have done, and what I am committed to doing.

Stage 11 · Existentialist Ethics

Creating values in a world without God

Without God, there are no objective moral laws given from outside. Values cannot be read
off nature, scripture or reason. They must be created through choice. This might seem to
make ethics impossible — but Sartre argues the reverse. Ethical life becomes more
demanding, not less, without God.

When I choose, Sartre insists, I do not choose merely for myself. I choose for all of
humanity — because in choosing what I do, I implicitly affirm an image of what human
beings should do. Choosing to be cowardly in the face of injustice is not merely a personal
failing; it is a statement that cowardice in the face of injustice is acceptable for human
beings. This is why Sartre says: 'I am responsible for myself and for everyone else.'

This social dimension of Sartre's ethics distinguishes him from the charge of pure
individualism. The freedom is individual, but the responsibility is universal. My choices
create values not just for me but for humanity.
When I choose, I choose for all. In fashioning myself, I fashion an image of
humanity as I believe it should be. There is no act that does not create a value —
and no escape from this responsibility.

Stage 12 · Evaluation

Strengths and criticisms

Strengths Criticisms

Most powerful philosophical defence of Excessive individualism — neglects social

human freedom in the 20th century structure, power, class, history

Accountability: removes all excuses — Freedom overstated — are people truly free
forces genuine moral responsibility under poverty, oppression, trauma?

Conflictual view of human relations: all

Theory of Bad Faith is a precise, practical
relations involve struggle (Hell is other
tool for self-examination
people)

Influenced existential psychology (R.D. No objective moral framework — how do

Laing), literature, feminist theory we evaluate genuinely wrong choices?

'Existence precedes essence' — Copernican Self as pure project — ignores biological,

revolution in philosophy of human nature psychological constraints on selfhood

Analysis of The Look — intersubjectivity Later Sartre (Critique of Dialectical Reason)

and the problem of other minds partially contradicts early radical freedom

The full logical chain — at a glance

Condemned to Be Free
Jean-Paul Sartre starts with a simple truth: God does not exist.
Because there is no God, there is no fixed human nature. “Existence precedes essence.”
You are born first — thrown into the world. Then you must create yourself through your
choices. Humans are self-creating.
Consciousness is always intentional — it is directed toward something — but it has no
substance. At its core is Nothingness: it feels lack, absence, possibility. Sartre calls this
Being-for-itself (free, conscious human existence). In contrast, things like tables and
stones are Being-in-itself — fixed and complete.
Humans desperately want to be both: fixed and free at the same time. This impossible
desire to become God makes man “a useless passion.”
We are radically free — condemned to be free. There is no escape. This brings three
burdens:
 Anguish: the heavy weight of total choice
 Abandonment: no external guide or rules
 Despair: no guarantee that things will work out
Many people run from this freedom through Bad Faith — self-deception. The waiter plays
at being a waiter. The lover pretends love is destiny. They act as if they have no choice.
Authenticity means honestly embracing your freedom.
But freedom is threatened by others. Sartre calls it “The Look.” When someone looks at
you, they turn you into an object. “Hell is other people.”
For Sartre, the self is never finished — it is a continuous project of self-creation. When you
choose, you are choosing for all humanity. You are responsible not only for yourself, but
for everyone.
Sartre’s message is harsh but liberating:
There is no excuse.
You are free. Choose.
Create yourself.
Live authentically.

Man is condemned to be free. And from the moment he exists — responsible for
everything.

Previous Years' Questions (UPSC)

Year Question

2016 Discuss Sartre's notion of 'Nothingness'.

Bring out the relationship between existence and essence in the case of human
2015
being. Explain the issues it gives rise of for human beings according to Sartre.

2014 Examine Sartre's distinction between Being-for-itself and Being-in-itself.

2013 Examine Sartre's distinction between Being-for-itself and Being-in-itself.

'I am responsible for myself and for everyone else.' Describe this statement in
2011
the light of Sartre's existentialism.

2009 'Existence precedes essence.' Comment.

2004 Discuss Sartre's conception of freedom.

2003 'Existence precedes essence'.

2000 Sartre's phenomenological ontology.

— End of Sartre Notes —