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Existentialism and Ed Dante
Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy of existentialism was radically different from previous systems of morality that attempted to determine which actions were inherently morally right and wrong. Sartre instead suggested that human beings are free, within the framework of the cosmic order, to do as they wished. This did not mean, however, that people could simply do what they wanted without consequences. Rather, it meant that their actions created those consequences -- their character and their fate. "The Traditional View (which Sartre argues against)" of morality is that "essence precedes action" (Banach 2006). A bad character, in other words, means that a human being will do bad things. In this traditional view 'Ed Dante' is a bad and immoral person, or at very least a weak and corruptible person, and because of his character he does unethical things.
But Sartre believed there was no inherent essence, good or bad to a person. However, the actions of the person created the person's character. According to Dante, he passively 'fell into' writing term papers. Sartre, however, would state that this is impossible. Dante made a conscious choice...
Rather than seeing human options as limited, Sartre viewed such thinking as 'if I don't make money by any means possible, I can't afford to live and pay off my student loans' as socially-conditioned thinking. A true existentialist ignores such socially-determined constraints. Although Dante regards himself as free, in casting off the morality of conventional academic society in terms of how he makes his living, his prioritization on making money over making art through his writing is actually a reflection of how much he has internalized cultural stereotypes of the right way to live. Dante is abdicating his responsibility as a human being to be free and has instead elected to live a life of anguish. The reasons that human beings feel anxiety and misery is because "we are faced with the lack of any external source of value and determination. We are faced with the responsibility of choosing our own nature and values" (Banach 2006). Dante has made his choice, and in his case he has chosen to be a hack, writing thousands of words for other people, rather than seeking his authentic self and writing the novel he initially aspired…
Works Cited
Banach, David. "Existentialism." Summary of some main points from Sartre's Existentialism
and Human Emotions. St. Anselm's College. 2006.
http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/sartreol.htm [17 September 2012]
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