Dostoevsky and Sartre on human freedom

Dostoevsky & Sartre

Choose and present a single (1) quotation from the work of each author that most persuasively indicates their position that human beings are free.

One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice -- however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to a frenzy -- is that very 'most advantageous advantage' which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms" (Dostoevsky, p. 379, Rt).

A evidently...it is by a pure wrenching away from himself and the world that the worker can posit his suffering as unbearable...and...make of it the motive for his revolutionary action. This implies for consciousness the permanent possibility of affecting a rupture with its own past... so as to be able to consider it in the light of a non-being and so as to be able to confer on it the meaning which it has in terms of the project of the meaning which it does not have [emphasis not added] (Sartre, pp. 383-384, Rt; Lt).

Keeping the views of the authors separate, present a complete outline of what each describes as the nature of human freedom, working first with Dostoevsky and then Sartre.

Dostoevsky describes the nature of human freedom as separate from scientific and rational constraint; that is, free to create and define the circumstances and the boundaries (or the lack thereof) by which one lives. Without realizing it, however, most human beings habitually behave in ways that contradict their freedom, running headlong toward that which makes them less, rather than more free. Freedom is the ability to negate supposedly rational systems; rationality, in particular another's rationality, unexamined critically by oneself, represents a constraint too readily accepted, and, therefore, a negation of one's own freedom before one even experiences it. Dostoevsky implies, further, that individuals essentially fear the possibility of their own freedom, since to fully exercise it would involve the creation of that freedom: that is, the negation of what a government, society, or other group has accepted as the proper way to live. Freedom, in order to be genuinely obtained, must be radical, that is, it must be built from the roots upward, a creative endeavor humanity tends both to fear and to be too reticent (or lazy?) to undertake. It is much easier to adhere to groupthink or tradition than to strike out on one's own -- toward authentic freedom; yet that, suggests Dostoevsky through his underground man, it the condition of possibility by which humanity may, should it dare (and/or bother) to do so, gain genuine freedom.

Jean-Paul Sartre suggests that human freedom springs, first, from the ability to perceive oneself as not free, that is, to first identify a lack of freedom inherent within one's present circumstances, and second, to creatively imagine the nature of that freedom that is not yet there, but replace that which at present functions to disallow or to restrict the possibilities of freedom. Under Sartre's theory, freedom is other than what exists now; however, it must first be imagined, from nothingness, in order for it to then become possible, as an alternative for that which how exists, but which creates the human condition of being less than free.

Explain, now, with reference to the material outlined for 2 above, how the two authors' views differ with regard to the character of human freedom.

Dostoevsky's view of the character of human freedom represents a reaction against scientific or rational systems that would serve to restrict, constrain, or otherwise discourage an individual from thinking for himself or herself, that is, originally and imaginatively, without dogmas, assumptions, or preconceived notions cluttering the thought processes. In Dostoevsky's view, systematization and scientific rationality not only prevent but impinge upon true freedom, since these constrain the human spirit and the imagination. According to the article "Radical Freedom," what is being suggested by Dostoevsky's underground man is that to achieve actual freedom, one must challenge "natural laws, reason, and even enlightened self-interest" (p. 374, Lt) rather than passively accepting them, or being afraid to challenge them.