Existentialism as Christian Moralism?

Kind Glowing Seer

Hi, this question comes from a non-philosopher, so pardon any misreadings, or limited readings, or limited knowledge altogether (of which there are plenty).

I want to talk about Simone de Beauvoir's "Ethics of Ambiguity", more specifically her critique of the stereotypes the author dubs "sub-man", "serious man", "nihilist", and "adventurer" as potential responses to the proposed problem of the ambiguity of human existence (i. e. a human being both as a determined object, and a transcendent subject capable of exercising absolute freedom). The "sub-man" being the person who does not deal with the ambiguity altogether, thus pretending to exist on the level of an object only and ultimately becoming a blind follower of some mob or other. The "serious man" being the person who takes up an already given set of values as absolute truth and in doing so denies their own freedom. The "nihilist" being the person who accepts the ambiguity, concludes that only nothingness is absolute, and adopts an attitude of total rejection, including a rejection of freedom. The "adventurer" being... well, Nietzsche, who wants to take up their own freedom and disregard the freedom of others.

My problem is that de Beauvoir's ethics strike me as is an attempt to sneak Christian morality through the backdoor of an atheistic worldview. I think her idea of the human subject harkens back to the Christian idea of the soul: namely that it's transcendent and undetermined. But then she, like Sartre, is an atheistic thinker. On what grounds then do they assert the free human subject against the "universe of objects"? As a non-believer it only seems logical to me that, after rejecting God and the possibility of the existence of a substance that is distinct from the physical substance making up all of the universe, one should also reject the idea of the human subject as anything substantial, and thus conclude that there is no such thing as human freedom, but rather that a person's character and actions should be understood as an expression of their social circumstances and their biological being.

Furthermore, on that basis of human subjectivity in tension with objective facticity de Beauvoir wants to argue, contra egoist adventurism, and absolute nihilistic rejection, and absolute faith, and blind herd mentality, and in favour of a humanist ethics. In other words: an ethics of caring for one's fellow man, striving to maximize other people's capacity for freedom and happiness as well as one's own. This, in addition to the fact that those five modes of existence (is it correct to call them that?) she sets up in a hierarchy with the submen occupying the lowest rung, also strikes me as a very Christian notion. "Man is free; but he finds his law in his very freedom"! So we started from the fact that there are no laws set in stone, that existence precedes essence and morality cannot be grounded in anything absolute, and ended up with a morality grounded in the absolute freedom of the transcendent subject. I don't quite understand how that process works. I am free but I am not free to be inert, not free to blindly trust authority, not free to senselessly destroy others and myself, and not free to use others for my own advantage. Why? Because otherwise I would not be able to actualize myself as fully human, based on a view of human essence as something pure and not contingent on the facticity of the world, in other worlds - on a spiritual viewpoint? Because nothing has inherent value... except human beings which are somehow special and sacred in this universe of objects?

yupamiralda

↪Kind Glowing Seer

I have similar problems with the sort of thinking you talk about. Absolute freedom is a ridiculous idea.

Unquestionably Existentialism has Christian antecedents, from Kierkegaard to Heidegger. Leo Strauss makes an interesting comment on the difference between plato's philosopher and Nietzsche's, which is something like "Nietzsche's philosopher is an heir to the bible; to him, philosophizing is intrinsically holy." Neitzsche's adventure from nihilism to global tyranny is admirably if quite artificially organized in "the will to power" (his notes).

My approach to nihilism is: I'm going to try to be the best animal I can be, with as much power as suits my purposes. I know it's likely all meaningless, but nobody can take some position outside of human life and judge whether or not it "ought" to be lived.

SethRy

I am free but I am not free to be inert, not free to blindly trust authority, not free to senselessly destroy others and myself, and not free to use others for my own advantage. Why? Because otherwise I would not be able to actualize myself as fully human... — Kind Glowing Seer

The proposition of human free-will does not necessarily mean you are free to perpetrate and do flagrant things. I'll begin to support my statement with nihilism. If a nihilist defines the world as meaningless, subsequently; morality is meaningless as well. Values, virtues, and doing personally-willed good things do not matter.

Humans are rational beings — that rationality drives us to know what is morally right or wrong, hence why we are very indecisive morally, because we weigh different variables in a problem before we decide to do something. Thus moral decision practices like: utilitarianism, contractarianism, and virtue ethics surfaced to the human thinking.

Interestingly, the OP does mention objectivity and subjectivity for morality, it'd be safe to assume that Nietzsche's humanly rationalization drove him to condone nihilism as morally acceptable; it's his subjective view on the world.

That would also mean that nihilism is impossible — for nihilism, he argues, is made to be the: monotony, the true essence of life, life's very sole meaning. Rather than meaningless, meaninglessness is the meaning.

Conclusion

So a nihilist human being, I would think surely, cannot agreeably do immoral things, the nihilist would feel uncomfortable.

So if a human, more comfortably doing immoral things, is not self-actualization, its solely just doing immoral things.

Wayfarer

Because otherwise I would not be able to actualize myself as fully human, based on a view of human essence as something pure and not contingent on the facticity of the world, in other worlds - on a spiritual viewpoint? Because nothing has inherent value... except human beings which are somehow special and sacred in this universe of objects? — Kind Glowing Seer

I haven't read De Beauvoir, but something this brings to mind is Abraham Maslow's conception of self-actualisation: that humans have needs beyond those of food, shelter and survival, which find expression in artistic endeavour and the many other modes of expression (uniquely) available to human. I suppose this has echoes of the Aristotelian eudaimonia - that it is natural to seek well-being in human flourishing.

I see a kind of tension in your account, also. If an 'atheistic worldview' really does entail that life is nothing more than a meaningless chemical accident - the kind of atheism that mid-20th century scientific atheists like Jacques Monod portrayed - then humans beings are nothing special and indeed they're the kind of ultimate joke - an output of a meaningless process that mistakenly thinks of itself as capable of grasping meaning. That's the kind of feeling that motivated an ancient to say that if man is just an animal, then he's the most miserable of them all; other animals never burden themselves with such worries.

I guess what I'm seeing is this kind of struggle to retain some sense of the spiritual whilst clinging doggedly to ideological atheism. Which actually is a theme that animates a lot of mid-Century existentialism. I see it as a kind of backlash against European religious history, desperate to avoid anything that sounds like 'God', but too sensitive to cope with the bleakness of materialist atheism.

whollyrolling

↪Kind Glowing Seer

Firstly, Nietzsche's primary concern seemed to be the freedom of others, and anything within his texts that suggests otherwise can often be ascribed to cynicism or some literary device. I believe he was better with language than philosophy. Secondly, I'm continually accused and have seen others accused of materialism for reducing beings and substances to rudimentary components. Thirdly, there's no reason to suspect that anything other than the material world exists, and it has occurred to me that many religious tenets were intended to promote survival of the species, or at least the community--some were better than others at achieving it.

I can't comment on the specific philosopher in question, but to separate religion as if it was external, as if it was anything but a cognitive process seems absurd. Many classical philosophers eek religion into their exhibits of rich-kid mental gymnastics and a version of ethics. Both religion and morality predate recorded history, so do the chicken and the egg, and they're all conditional.

tim wood

My problem is that de Beauvoir's ethics strike me as is an attempt to sneak Christian morality through the backdoor of an atheistic worldview. — Kind Glowing Seer

I speculate - offer without having read - that it's not Christian morality, but a reaching back through "Christian morality" to what came before, and from which the parts of Christianity that are derivative or reactive or in any case non-original came from. As it happens, much discussion and thinking about Christianity is actually about topics in themselves nothing Christian, but that are viewed through a lens of Christian thinking. And that thinking itself but a process (the thinking itself) that Christianity influences but did not originate.

Obvious example, the notion of a soul is itself an idea much older than Christianity.

Existentialism as Christian Moralism?

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