Sartre and Camus: Freedom, Absurdity, and Responsibility

Existentialism as a Postwar Philosophy

The end of World War II. Concentration camps, the atomic bomb, the collaboration of millions and the heroism of a few. Existentialism—primarily French—responded to the question: how to live when traditional moral guidelines have failed? If God was silent during Auschwitz, if rational people served Nazism—what remains?

Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus gave different but related answers. Their works of the 1940s were read and discussed in Parisian cafés and underground circles as living philosophy, not academic texts.

Sartre: Existence Precedes Essence

Sartre’s main thesis: “Existence precedes essence.” For things, essence (definition) comes first, then existence: a knife is made for cutting—its essence is determined by the craftsman before its creation. For humans, the opposite is true: first a person simply exists—with no given nature, no predetermined purpose. Then one creates one’s own “essence” through choices.

This is radical freedom: “Man is condemned to be free.” You cannot say “that’s my nature,” “I was raised this way,” “I have no choice”—these are all examples of “bad faith” (mauvaise foi). Every moment is a choice, even not to choose—that’s also a choice.

Responsibility is total: in choosing for myself, I choose for all humanity. If I choose to be a coward—I affirm that cowardice is normal. This is Sartre’s “nausea”: vertigo from the insecurity of existence, from the fact that nothing is given.

Camus: Absurdity and Revolt

Albert Camus took another approach. “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942): life is absurd. A person craves meaning, clarity, unity—the world is silent in response, indifferent, unresponsive. This collision is absurdity. How should one live with this?

Camus rejects three responses: physical suicide (capitulation), philosophical suicide (the religious “leap of faith”—the pretense that meaning exists after all), philosophical self-deception (stoicism as numbing one’s sensitivity). The right answer: revolt. Continue to live, knowing about the absurd, without capitulating. “We must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Later, Camus developed the idea of “revolt” in “The Rebel” (1951): revolt as a refusal of oppression, but without revolutionary terror. This was his break with Sartre: Camus could not accept the Soviet GULAG as a “temporary necessity” on the road to communism.

De Beauvoir: Existentialism and Feminism

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) often remains in Sartre’s shadow, though her “The Second Sex” (1949) is one of the most important books of the twentieth century. She applied existentialism to the condition of women: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Femininity is not nature, but a social construct imposed by patriarchal society. Woman is defined as the “Other” in relation to the male “I”—and accepts this as a given.

De Beauvoir combined the analysis of oppression with the philosophy of freedom: genuine freedom is possible only when it is available to all—liberation of some depends on the liberation of others.

Question for reflection: Camus suggests “we must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Is there an “absurd labor” in your life—a job without guaranteed meaning that you do nonetheless? How do you cope with this?