website title

Students Zone / Questions / Chapter 17: Creating the Self

1. Are we really just the product of social and economic forces as Marx maintains?

2. Consider the meaning and the importance of the idea of responsibility to existentialism.

3. In Existentialism and Humanism Sartre likens the choice a man makes when he acts to the construction of a work of art. What characteristics of artistic creation does he think moral decision shares? Do you think his arguments stands up to critical evaluation?

4. Sartre’s aim in stressing that ‘existence precedes essence’ is to reject all metaphysics and metaphysical speculation about human beings. Explain and critically discuss this.

5. ‘Our point of departure is, indeed, the subjectivity of the individual.’ (Sartre). In what ways can subjectivity be seen as the point of departure for existentialism?

6. Sartre maintains that all the choices we make in shaping ourselves are groundless: we are free from all deterministic forces just to ‘invent’ ourselves. But if this is the case no reasons can be given for preferring one thing to another and if this is true nothing can be rationally preferred. Explain this and discuss whether you believe Sartre’s account is open to this objection.