Jean-Paul Sartre was one of my favorites when I was an undergraduate.I enjoyed his novels and plays, and his great essay “Existentialism as Humanism. “ And I once even read a good bit ofBeing and Nothingness,his 700 page magnum opus.

那么萨特所说的我们是完全自由的，我们是注定要自由的，是什么意思呢?什么是存在主义?

This morning I made the decision to come to work on Philosophy Talk, rather than turn over and go back to sleep. Now I couldn't’ decide to change the past --- say go back and change the Philosophy Talk schedule, so that I had another day before I had to prepare. That’s was given, fixed. And a lot of other things are given so I couldn’t do anything about. This is what Sartre calls thefacticity of the in-itself, by the way.

Nothing given, however, dictated whatIwould decide. I couldn’t count on the laws of nature or God to get me out of bed. I had to make the decision. I am afor-itself, a consciousness, not an in-itself, like a rock. I am condemned to be radically free.

But, I might say, Ipromisedto work on philosophy talk this morning. I live up to my promises, that’s part of my nature, part of who and what I am. So Icouldn’t,really, do anything but get out of bed and get to work. That's how itseemed.

Wrong, Sartre would say. I couldn’tbothroll over and go back to sleepandfulfill my promise. But Icouldroll over and go back to sleep, andthereby打破我的诺言。我过去的承诺，所以今天早上它是本质的一部分。但我为哲学讲座做准备的决定却不是这样。中国伊朗亚洲杯比赛直播我必须做出决定，世界上没有什么东西，就像我做出决定的那一刻所发展的那样，迫使我决定起床。That decision hadn’t been made;Ihad to make it.

但是，这难道不是违背我的本性，违背我的本性吗，无视我的义务?

Sartre would say that I am trying to escape from freedom. There is no essential nature that fixes who I are and what I do. My decisions and actions define my nature, not the other way around. As Sartre says, “existence precedes essence”.

Existentialism is sort of a generalization of all of this. Not only each individual, but humankind in general, creates its own nature. God didn’t determine the essence of humanity --- Sartre was an atheist. And biology doesn’t fix the nature of humanity in many important ways. It fixes the way we digest things and gives us the ability to perceive and move our bodies in various ways. But it doesn’t settle what is right and what is wrong; that’s done by human decisions.

但是，即使是无神论者也相信存在客观的价值领域。我们的自由仅限于此。人类的决定并不能确定2 + 2 = 4，或者π是无理数，即使没有上帝，情况也是如此。人类的决定，他们没有决定种族灭绝是错误的，而遵守承诺是正确的。这些东西是给定的，不是吗?

But according to Sartre, there is no objective realm of values that fixes the nature of right and wrong. This is the way that his existentialism differs from other versions of secular humanism. It’s all up to us. For humankind as well as for each individual, existence precedes essence. Objective values are just one more way of trying to escape from freedom.

It’s not so easy to put the various sides of Sartre together. He is famous for being part of the French Resistance, fighting Nazi-ism in every way he could. Could he really have really dared all risk all to fight this evil, if he didn’t really think it wasobjectivelyevil? Could he really think that it was his decision to fight Naziism, that made it evil? Was slavery OK, until humans decided it was not OK?

这一切都让人难以接受。不过，我认为他可能是对的。我想我必须决定自己是否是个存在主义者。