The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre - Essay Example

As Sartre states, we still have the option to either refuse to fight in the war or to kill ourselves.  Whichever option we would choose, it would be choosing an existence that was not involved with the war.   Sartre also states that we are bound to the time period that we live in.  While we might choose how we will exist, we cannot choose all of the conditions of our existence.  For instance, a person who was born and living in Germany right before World War II might have the ability to not take part in the atrocities that were happening, but this person would have to choose to be either a part of the problem or to not be a part of the problem.

  While we can choose how we are to be, we obviously couldn’t choose to not have to make a decision in regards to the two options. As we can see, we cannot completely control the situations of our lives, though we must choose how we are to be.  Sartre states that anguish deals with the recognition that we cannot be the complete foundation of our own being.  Thus there is a general human desire to get beyond what the human experience is, and anything that is beyond the human experience is considered to be “God.

”  God would be a being that is both in-itself and for-itself, and as such is the cause of one’s own existence.  As such, this is an impossibility for a human, and thus the desire to be God can only lead to more human suffering.