The Level Of Freedom In Sartre's Our Limited Freedom

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Our Limited Freedom Sartre’s notion “man is responsible for what he is” is flawed because individuals have vastly different experiences, backgrounds, and intrinsic mental and cognitive functions, all of which affect their ability to make the choices they make. Sartre speaks of “abandonment” – that if God does not exist, then everything is permitted, and thus man is without excuse for any of his actions. As stated by Sartre, “Man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does.” But is every single individual on earth fully responsible for every single one of their actions? We begin by looking …show more content…

Just because someone is capable of performing an action does that mean they are aware of performing said option – you cannot make a choice that you are not aware of. Children cannot exercise the same degree of will power and independent thinking as adults can, and can be easily influenced and manipulated to act or believe in something they might not have had without outside interference. If an individual can be manipulated, are they truly free? Sartre could say that individual might have made the choice to allow themselves to be influenced, but can we truly say that for …show more content…

Since we do not have freedom to choose our past experiences, and these past experiences affect our ability to make choices and perform actions, it is difficult to say with absolute resolve that man indeed is free and bears full responsibility for everything. At the very least, Sartre has no choice but to admit that there are individuals out there that do not have the same amount of freedom as other individuals and thus does not bear the same amount of

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