EXISTENTIALIST ETHICS: GENERAL DESCRIPTION

PHIL 4100.01. 4 - 5:20 PM, Mon. and Wed.

Bob Corbett, instructor

Existentialism is first and foremost a philosophical position. Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the leading figures in the movement claims that it is a philosophy for technicians (of philosophy) and professional philosophers. Perhaps this is so.

It is also different from significant parts of the cannon of "professional" philosophy. Much of philosophy is interested in ideas for their own sake and one can take a position, explore it and discuss it simply to see where it might lead and what might rationally follow from this or that premise. Existentialists are much more committed to philosophy as a tool to guide life, and thus less tolerant and less interested in ideas for their own sake. They are much more wedded to philosophy as a tool to learn how to be in the world.

However, this general attitude toward philosophy tells us nothing of any common doctrines of the Existentialists, and they have these too. Existentialism tends to be a philosophical position which holds:

• human rational and objective knowledge cannot give us full answers to questions of existence and particularly of value.
• human existence does not have a knowable objective existence.
• most, but not all, Existentialists are atheists, believing that human existence is lived without any knowledge of or help from any transcendental beings, nor with the existence of a life after death.
• Existentialists generally hold that human life is filled with suffering and pain, at least if one is "authentic" and faces the realities of human existence.
• Existentialists generally follow the lead of Friederich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger and hold that human beings can be divided into the authentic (those who live with careful thoughtfulness and self-reflection, taking responsibility for their acts) and the inauthentic (those who don't live authentic lives). They are divided as to whether people are authentic or inauthentic by nature or choice, or what the interrelationships between these options are.
• Existentialists tend to be among the strongest supporters of the notion of human free will of any philosophers in human history. Human beings are alone in a world of their own making, responsible for their every act, in a world that brings much more suffering and pain than happiness or pleasure.

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All of these are broad generalizations. There is probably no Existentialist who holds each of these beliefs fully, and there are disagreements about details of these theses among the Existentialist camp. Many of the people we call Existentialist were either born before the movement was named, or explicitly denied they were members of this school of philosophy.

All of that having been said, I can sketch roughly some of the themes and readings and topics this course will investigate.

1. We will begin with the questions of the knowledge of good and evil and how we can't fully know these things, that we must choose the sort of world we value. To guide us and challenge us in this study we will read Frederich Nietzsche's THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS.
2. Having gotten some grasp on this epistemological issue, we will turn to the question of meaninglessness. Our guide into this question will be Jean-Paul Sartre's novel NAUSEA.
3. Hoping that we have a decent general sense of the framework by this time, we'll next turn to a more focused book on ethics (the focus of this course) with Simone de DeBeauvoir's THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY.
4. One of the questions that will have arisen many times before we get these three works read and discussed will be the question of authenticity. We will next read some sections on this topic from three sources:
   • "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter of Fydor Dostovesky's THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.
   • Selections from Martin Heidegger's BEING AND TIME.
   • Selections from Jean-Paul Sartre's BEING AND NOTHINGNESS.

While we tackle all these works together as a group, a number of smaller groups or individuals will be reading and preparing reports to the class of related topics that we need to hear of.

• The question of free will and personal responsibility.
• Albert Camus' treatment of suicide in the face of meaninglessness -- or, why bother? In his THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS.
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty's defense of terrorism in HUMANISM AND TERRORISM, and the response in Arthur Koestler's novel DARKNESS AT NOON.
• Viktor Frankl's exposition of logotherapy as a response to meaninglessness in THE DOCTOR AND THE SOUL.
• Other such topics will be offered for research of small groups or individuals.

Each student will be expected to attend all classes, do all the common readings described above and one detailed research project, either as part of a small group or as an individual on a pre-approved topic.

There will be periodic writing assignments, but no formal examinations.

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