Peace, Force & Joy

Dictionary of New Humanism

ECOLOGY. (From Gr. oikos, house; and -logy). We are indebted to Lamarck and Treviranus for the basis and name of the new science that after 1802 came to be called Biology. What was formerly referred to as Natural History was reformulated by Haeckel in 1869 when it began to form part of Biology under the name of e. This branch of knowledge studies the relationship between organisms and the environment (*) in which they live. Today, e. studies the adaptations of species related to their needs for energy, food, and reproduction. As an academic discipline, e. is divided into plant, animal, and human e. In general terms, e. is concerned with the adaptation of species and the environmental factors affecting them (habitats, climate, other species, etc.).

One of the fundamental themes of e. is ecosystems (the ensemble of living and non-living beings which are interrelated within and linked to the same environment). Ecosystems are thermodynamically open systems which receive energy from outside and transmit it to neighboring ecosystems. The study of ecosystems is based on systems theory and cybernetics. The ecosystem includes a body of organic (species) and inorganic elements which are in a state of constant interaction.

Today, interest in e. has spread beyond the cloisters of academia, reaching large sectors of the population. The excesses of companies and other entities that pollute have been duly documented. They have and continue to perpetrate serious imbalances that threaten existing flora and fauna, dumping toxic wastes and non-biodegradable residues, promoting the use of nuclear power as a source of energy, and unleashing environmental contamination and acid rain. To this must be added the growth of the mega-cities, the damage to the productivity of farmland irrationally over-treated with pesticides and chemical fertilizers, the desertification of vast areas, etc. All of these factors constitute a serious focus of concern for those interested in protecting the flora, fauna, and climate in a balanced environment that will ensure human survival and well-being. The practice of calling attention to the growing ecological difficulties that societies are today experiencing, which has been generically termed environmentalism (*), signifies an important advance in the increasing consciousness of the people regarding one of the most critical problems of these times. Even if, among the teachers and leaders of environmentalism, there is not a single, homogeneous interpretation of the deterioration of the environment or the methods to be followed to overcome this dangerous situation, a collective sensibility has begun to emerge that has led to the passage of increasing amounts of legislation against anti-environmental activities. Of course, these dangerous activities will not be fully resolved until they come to be understood as crimes against humanity. Moreover, although we can advance in that direction, we need to understand that the inhuman system in which we live today carries in its own development the seeds of disintegration of both itself and everything that comes under its control. The need for a radical change in the structure of power and in the organization of societies becomes all the more obvious in light of the growing ecological disaster.

ECONOMY. (L. oeconomia; Gr. oikonomia, management of a household or state, public revenue, from oikonomos, manager, administrator; oikos, house, and nemein, to distribute, manage). System of relations of production, distribution, and services, and of the related enterprises ranging from family businesses to multi-national corporations. The corresponding branch of science that studies these relationships and the economic system in general is termed economics. It is customary to speak of both private or domestic e. and public e. to highlight the extent of economic activity; of rural or urban e. to indicate the surroundings in which the productive operations are carried out; of mixed e. to refer to an intermediate economic system between a liberal e. (which implies the absence of State intervention) and a planned e. (with maximum State control). We also speak of economies of scale in which the earnings of a company are increased through a reduction in the unit cost of production achieved through increasing size; of external e. which is income not realized through a company’s own efforts but as the result of a favorable economic environment or events. There are also rudimentary economies, some operating underground, which may be of significant size and prosperity depending on the scale used to measure productivity.

N.H. proposes an economic model in which in every concrete set of circumstances the relations of production, exchange, and consumption are regulated by worker ownership (*) and by the interests of the majority of the population. This proposal encourages the humanization of the e., starting from the instrumental conception of economic factors at the service of the human being. The humanization of the e. advocated by N.H. diverges radically from all economistic models that rest on interpretative reductions of the individual, society, and political reality to mere epiphenomena or to simple reflections of prevailing economic or macroeconomic conditions. The central ideas of the project of humanizing the e. are outlined in the "Statement of New Humanism" (*Humanist Statement).

EDUCATION. (L. educatio, from educare, to rear, educate; from ducare, to lead). System for transmitting and extending knowledge, skills, and norms of conduct and social communication; includes corresponding theories (pedagogical science) and educational institutions. It is divided into numerous areas including pre-school, elementary, middle or junior high, high school, technical, college and university, adult, and special e. (for the deaf, the blind, etc.), as well as distance e., self e., etc. There is state, municipal, and private e., as well as e. and continuing e. by trade, professional, and other associations.

E. is preparation of the individual for the culture, for work, for the practice of science, ethics, art, etc. Because it contributes to the formation of each person’s ideology, culture, morality, approach, and orientation toward life and work, e. is the most important and traditional source of socialization.

It is customary to speak of e. in at least two different senses. One refers to the transmission of information and knowledge from educator to student, and here the new information technologies will progressively tend to replace certain work of the educator. There is another sense in which e. is conceived as preparing or enabling students for the world in which they live. This "world" refers as much to intangibles such as values and human relations as to physical objects. In this second sense, e. seeks to instill various modes of comprehension, points of view, different perspectives for understanding the realities of material and cultural objects as well as one’s interiority, one’s inner life and subjectivity. E. in today’s world is increasingly limited only to the transmission of data regarding objects, the objective, and is such is an important factor in the "emptying" or removal of subjectivity and meaning from human actions. This type of e. is in need of profound reform. Clearly, the problem of e. is one of the most pressing in the contemporary world.

The prospect of mass e. through the use of the new electronic technologies opens a vast field of possibilities for the development of collective knowledge. It should be noted, however, that the dissemination of knowledge (however neutral or scientific it claims to be), inevitably incorporates and carries the dominant ideology, as we see ever more clearly in the field of the human sciences (philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, law, economics, etc.). Moreover, this has happened and will happen with any method of e., independent of the technology used.

In the chapter "Education" of "The Human Landscape" in Humanize the Earth Silo writes:

1. … to educate is basically to train new generations in the exercise of a non-naive vision of reality, so that their look takes in a world not as a supposedly objective reality in itself, but rather as the object of transformation to which human beings apply their action. But I am not speaking now of information about the world; I am speaking, rather, of the intellectual exercise of a particular unprejudiced vision toward landscapes and of an attentive practice toward one’s own look. A basic education should strive for the exercise of coherent thought. This does not, in this case, refer to knowledge per se, but to the person’s contact with his or her own registers of thinking.

2. Second, education should make use of the incentive of emotional comprehension and development; thus, the exercise of dramatics on the one hand and self-expression on the other, in addition to expertise in managing harmony and rhythm, should be considered in planning an integral education. But the object of such an education is not to instrument procedures that seek to produce artistic talents, the intention is rather that individuals make emotional contact with themselves and others, without the alterations and disorientations that are induced by an education of separateness and inhibition.

3. Third, education should involve a practice that will call into harmonic play all of the person’s corporal resources, and this discipline more closely resembles a form of gymnastics performed artfully than it does a sport, which does not form the person integrally, but in a one-sided fashion. What is entailed here is to allow the person to make contact with his or her body and to govern it with ease and assurance. Thus, although sports would not have to be regarded as formative activity, their practice would be useful were it based on above-mentioned discipline.

4. Thus far I have spoken of education from the point of view of activities formative of human beings in their human landscape, without speaking of information as it relates to knowledge, to the incorporation of data through study and through practice as a form of study.

ELECTION. (L. electio, from eligere, to choose, select). Process of electing; appointment to a position or office through a process of voting; essential democratic process for establishing an institution, filling a public office, or forming bodies that hold powers delegated by each citizen or member of the association.

There are different kinds of electoral systems; for example, proportional representation in which the candidate in an electoral area who obtains an absolute or relative majority of votes wins the election. Elections can be general, or limited to one part of the electorate; by secret ballot or open election, or by acclamation; direct or indirect.

In monitoring elections it is important for official representatives of all parties or groups presenting candidates as well as neutral observers to take part.

ELECTORAL SYSTEM. (from elect: L. electus, pp. of eligere, to pick out, choose. System: Fr. systéme; LL. systema; Gr. systema, from synistanai, to place together; syn, with, together, and histanai, to set). One of the components of the official and legitimate mechanism for the realization of democracy, for the participation of the citizens in governing through the institution of elections and suffrage. It involves the administration of the State, provinces or states, cities and municipalities, associations, and public organizations, and the election of their officials and functionaries, as well as the monitoring of their activities.

Elections can be direct or indirect; voting can be secret or open. There are different methods for the monitoring of elections and for the distribution of seats on representative bodies (in both majority and proportional systems).

In attempts to legitimize their power, authoritarian regimes replace genuine elections with elections by acclamation, fraudulent plebiscites, and other subterfuges. This is how Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Nasser, Pinochet, Suharto, Mao Tse-Tung, Saddam Hussein and other dictators have proceeded.

Furthermore, electronic technology applied to the electoral system is beginning to make possible not only an acceleration in counting ballots, but is also putting the citizen in immediate contact with legislative initiatives or actions by the executive branch, allowing them to exert pressure through direct expression of opinion (through computer networks), in a quasi-plebiscitary way. This possibility of instantaneous relationship between government initiatives and acceptance or rejection by the people, creates completely new conditions of interaction. Of course, we should not confuse this new technology with opinion polls, which are subject to various forms of manipulation by the State or the company gathering, processing, and providing the results.

N.H. proposes a complement to the electoral system. This is accomplished through a body of laws of political responsibility that contributes to popular control of government administration.

Measures that include political censure, the loss of rights and privileges of office, removal from office, etc. as well as mechanisms for their enforcement, need to be clear and subject to immediate application. Such a system is important not only to control irregularities but to reduce the margin of betrayal of the voters, which is frequently expressed as politicians not keeping their election promises. Under the pretext that the people must simply await the results of future elections to know whether or not citizens are in agreement with actions taken, any decision by the people is postponed, even on many questions of real urgency. At present, with the startling increases in the speed of social developments, such delay is completely disproportionate to the needs of the people and the possibilities of today’s technology, and this situation demands profound reform. Until now, betrayal of the electorate has been the favored method of leaders who have relied on the protection provided by the lapse of time until their mandate expires to insulate them from the people’s acceptance or rejection of their decisions and the applications of their measures.

ELITE. (Fr. from élite, choicer, select; pp. of élire; L. eligere, to choose, select). The most outstanding or respected level of informal leaders which stands out in each social group or corporation, and which develops and transmits ethical, aesthetic, and other values as well as norms of social conduct within the group.

A number of theories exist offering different definitions and explanations of this phenomenon, of the nature, social status, and role in society of elites (from biological interpretations that see no essential difference between natural and social elites, to mechanistic, systematological, and cultural interpretations).

EMANCIPATION. (From emancipate: L. emancipatus, emancipare, from e- and mancipare, to deliver as property, transfer, sell). Process and goal of liberation from a condition of subjugation. Recovery of liberty (*), sovereignty, autonomy, and independence.

In social relations this is a question of achieving the e. of oppressed groups or social strata (servants, slaves, women, homosexuals, ethnic or religious minorities, etc.).

In international relations, e. is a question of liberation of colonies and oppressed nations, of proclaiming and making real their independence and equality of rights with respect to other states. Different forms of e. can be distinguished: spiritual, cultural, political, economic, etc.

There are violent and non-violent forms of e. N.H. opts for non-violent forms. The principal objective of the activities of N.H. is the search for the full range of possibilities for eliminating all factors of oppression so that human beings can develop their freedom, their creative qualities and strengths.

EMPIRICAL HUMANISM. (From empiric: L. empiricus; Gr. empeirikos, experienced, from empeiria, experience; en, in, and peira, a trial, attempt. Humanism, see etymology at human being). Any humanism that is put into practice without historical or philosophical premises. E.H. is the clearest, most commonplace example of the exercise of the humanist attitude (*).

ENLIGHTENMENT, THE. (From light: ME. lighten, lichten; AS. lyhtan, lihtan, to shine, make light, from leoht, bright, light; L. luc-, lux light, lucere to shine, Gk. leukos white, Skt. rocate he shines). Illumination of the understanding with the light of the intellect. In world history, this name, the Age of E. or Century of Light, was given to the eighteenth century. The beginnings of this current of thought, which gives priority to scientific knowledge and human reason, was marked by the work of Benedict Spinoza, René Descartes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, and other thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

While these elaborators of universal systems can be considered the precursors of the E., the encyclopaedists gave priority to empirical and historical knowledge, and the symbol of this period is Encyclopaedism, which managed to imprint the seal of enlightenment on global society and to place scientific knowledge, rationalism, and empiricism as the driving forces of social progress. According to the thinkers of the E., the ideas of good, justice, and human solidarity, reinforced by scientific knowledge, would succeed in changing qualitatively both the human being and all of society, contributing to the humanization of life.

Diderot introduced the idea of the unity of goodness and beauty. Voltaire wielded his critical scalpel against the conservative institution of the Church. Montesquieu established the principle of the separation of powers. Condillac founded the sensualist school, highlighting the role of analysis in scientific knowledge. Rousseau elaborated the doctrine of the "social contract." Schiller proclaimed his romantic humanism. Goethe placed special attention on the fusion of the natural and social dimensions in each human being.

The extension of encyclopaedic scientific knowledge, the intertwining of religious and atheistic approaches in the analysis of the phenomena of life, the aspiration to harmony and prosperity, the consolidation of the principles of justice and solidarity, paved the way for the inception of modern times. This new social order turned out to be neither as harmonious nor as humanistic as the thinkers of the E. had dreamed it would be, but it nevertheless signified an enormous step forward in the development of civilization.

The principal historical merit of the E. and the Renaissance as well consists of the renewal of humanism as a social ideology, a way of life, and an ethical base. All of this has had lasting significance for world civilization.

ENVIRONMENT. Term generally used to designate an integrated structure (*) of living systems.

ENVIRONMENTALISM. Extension and generalization of ecological concepts, transferring them into the realm of social reality. Emerging in the 1960s from movements advocating the protection of nature and the environment, e. involves an awareness of the disconnection or rupture between human beings and their natural environment, a rupture caused by an industrial civilization that contaminates, destroys, or exhausts non-renewable resources, and threatens the very survival of the species. E. declares the urgent need for forms of development that are in balance with nature, based on utilizing renewable and non-polluting energy sources. Implementing e. will only be possible through a maximum decentralization of the centers and process of decision-making and the application of measures for self-governance (*) that allow each person to feel fully responsible for his or her future.

EQUALITY. (From equal: OFr. egalite, équalité; L. aequalitas, equality, from aequalis, equal, level). Principle that recognizes in all citizens the capacity or possibility for the same rights.

Human beings cannot be equal, because each one is a distinct person unique among its kind, unrepeatable in history, irreplaceable. However, in economic activity the worker and the manager are fully replaceable in their technological functions, social roles, etc. This alienation (*) of the human being creates the illusion of universal e.

Egalitarianism arises from such a foundation. Historically, two fundamental conceptions of egalitarianism have developed: e. of possibilities and e. of results. Very important here is the problem of the relationship between the contribution and the remuneration of the individual, between abilities and needs, as well as mechanisms for the redistribution of income. The social-democratic approach attempts to establish and bring about various forms of compromise between these two conceptions of egalitarianism.

Communists affirm the e. of persons with respect to the ownership of the means of production, rejecting private property as the cause of alienation and exploitation.

Conservatives reject the e. of results as a violation of the principles of freedom and human nature, as a deplorable practice that undermines the effective functioning of the social system.

N.H. acknowledges the social e. of citizens before the law and nations with respect to their international rights as established in the charter of the United Nations, but does not accept egalitarianism as a social and political doctrine. At the same time, N.H. condemns the neo-conservative orientation that seeks to preserve the privileges of both the moneyed aristocracy and a tiny group of states at the expense of those social groups in greatest need and of developing countries.

EVOLUTION. (L. evolutio (-onis), an unrolling or opening, from evolutus, pp. evolvere, to unroll; e-, out, and volvere, to roll). The gradual and natural self-development of systems – social and organic – excluding abrupt or sudden transformations, especially artificial interventions, in the course of the natural process.

E. comprises an accumulation of changes that proceed toward growing complexity through a process extending over a more or less prolonged period of time.

In biological science the doctrine of e. attempts to explain natural phenomena as successive transformations of a single primary, material reality subjected to perpetual movement, by virtue of which it passes from simple and homogeneous to compound and heterogeneous. This presents serious theoretical problems, though, because certain important cosmologies (and their derived biological positions) have attempted to prove that from an initial state everything continues being gradually transformed until the energy and order are dissipated. In recent years, however, following the study of dissipative structures (due especially to the work of Ilya Prigogine), the concept of e. has been radically modified, altering not only the old conceptions but current ones as well still based on a simple entropic principle. In light of these conceptual changes, a fundamental revision is required, not only in the idea of e., but also, for example, in the field of the social sciences, in the idea of revolution (*), which implies a rupture or discontinuity in an evolutionary social process.

EXISTENTIALISM. (From existence: OFr. existence; LL. existentia, existence, from L. existere, exsistere, to come forth, to exist). One of the most influential of recent philosophical and cultural systems; a particular current of humanist thought that has as its objective the analysis and description of the meaning and contradictions of human life. From the point of view of e., the individual is not a mechanical part of a single totality (generation, class, social body), but an entity integral and complete in itself.

In the philosophy of e. there are numerous tendencies, among them religious and atheist. A common problematic unites them, but each has its own approach to understanding life. In the religious, primacy is granted to the relation of humankind to God. The atheist branch considers the individual as the only god. These conceptions, however, influence each other reciprocally, exhibiting the same concern for the suffering of human beings, proclaiming the same ethical principles, and experiencing the same disillusionment regarding the absurdity and meaninglessness of modern life. The same spirit of pessimism and even despair characterizes all the tendencies of the existentialist movement.

Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish philosopher and Protestant theologian, was one of the precursors of existentialist doctrine; he analyzed in great depth and detail such features of human existence as sorrow, fear, love, guilt, good and evil, death, consciousness, dread, etc. The permanent sense of dread that an individual experiences is a consequence of the feeling of abandonment in anticipation of inevitable death. Sincere faith is the only thing that allows the individual to live life consciously. Nicholas Berdyaev (1874-1948), a Russian Orthodox philosopher, developed the line of thought of Kierkegaard further, and founded what was termed "New Christianity." According to Berdyaev, the existence of the individual is founded in freedom, while the meaning of life is constituted "in the birth of God in the individual and of the individual in God." Only the individual exists, whereas everything else is simply there but does not exist because it has no consciousness of its existence, but merely adapts to objective conditions. In this form of e. three factors intersect: freedom, divine predestination, and the responsibility and personal energy of a being who knows how to think, feel, and produce. The individual must be always in a state of renewal, i.e., become ever more human.

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) understood this problem in his own way, attempting to separate the "temporal axis" of history and to focus attention on certain constants in life (sickness, death, suffering) that determine the principal meaning of existence. According to Jaspers, every being must seek its individuality in its present life.

In Spanish philosophy and literature Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) developed existentialist ideas. He attributed special significance to the idea of Quixotism, according to which the human being undertakes a permanent struggle (as did Don Quijote) for an unreal ideal. Every concrete existence is made up of collisions between the ordinary and the sublime, between pragmatism and spiritual revelation.

For many existentialists, Friederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) represents another source of this doctrine, apart from Kierkegaard.

Just as Marxists made use of the dialectical method of Hegel, more recent existentialists have employed the rigorous phenomenological method of Husserl in their descriptions.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) are other thinkers who have contributed in important ways to the development of e. José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) can also be considered part of this movement, even though his ratio-vitalist line of thought departs in many respects from a number of the supposed fundamentals of e.

Independent of the diversity that characterizes the existentialist focus on the circumstances of human life, this conception is notable for its sensitivity toward all problems of human existence as well as for its confidence in the personal, creative powers of human beings. The credo of many existentialists: "Existence means being human; human being means existence," corresponds fully with the conception of N.H.

EXISTENTIALIST HUMANISM. (See etymologies at existentialism and human being). A form of philosophical humanism (*).

Immediately after the Second World War, the French cultural panorama was dominated by the figure of Sartre and existentialism (*), the current of thought he helped spread through his work as a philosopher and novelist and through his engagement or politico-cultural commitment. Sartre’s philosophical formation took place in Germany in the 1930s, and was especially influenced by the phenomenological school of Husserl and Heidegger. In the postwar political climate and in his confrontation with Marxism and Christian Humanism, Sartre set out to extend the ethical-political aspects of his existentialism, redefining it as a humanist doctrine based on commitment and the acceptance of historical responsibilities, active in the denunciation of all forms of oppression and alienation. It was with this intent that in 1946 Sartre wrote Existentialism (L’Existentialisme est un humanisme), an essay consisting of a slightly modified version of the lecture he had given on the same topic at the Club Maintenant in Paris.

Sartre presented and defended the thesis that existentialism is a humanism as follows:

Many people are going to be surprised to hear us speaking of humanism on this occasion. We shall try to see in what sense it [existentialism] is to be understood as such. In any case, what can be said from the very beginning is that by existentialism we mean a doctrine that makes human life possible and, in addition, declares that every truth and every action implies a human setting and a human subjectivity . . . Subjectivity of the individual is indeed our point of departure, and this for strictly philosophic reason . . . There can be no other truth to take off from than this: I think; therefore, I exist. There we have the absolute truth of consciousness becoming aware of itself. Every theory that takes man out of the moment in which he becomes aware of himself is, at its very beginning, a theory that confounds truth, for outside the Cartesian cogito, all views are only probable, and a doctrine of probability that is not bound to a truth dissolves into thin air. In order to describe the probable, you must have a firm hold on the true. Therefore, before there can be any truth whatsoever, there must be an absolute truth; and this one is simple and easily arrived at; it’s on everyone’s doorstep; it’s a matter of grasping it directly.

Secondly, this theory is the only one that gives man dignity, the only one that does not reduce him to an object.

As distinct from what occurs in Cartesian philosophy, for Sartre the cogito, the "I think," led directly back to the world, to other human beings; thus, consciousness in its intentionality is always consciousness of something. Sartre continues:

. . . thus, the man who becomes aware of himself through the cogito also perceives all others, and he perceives them as the condition of his own existence. He realizes that he can not be anything . . . unless others recognize him as such. In order to get any truth about myself, I must have contact with another person. The other is indispensable to my own existence, as well as to my knowledge about myself. This being so, in discovering my inner being I discover the other person at the same time, like a freedom placed in front of me which thinks and wills only for or against me. Hence, let us at once announce the discovery of a world which we shall call inter-subjectivity; this is the world in which man decides what he is and what others are.

Sartre next goes on to give the definition of the human being from the point of view of existentialism. In Sartre’s view, all existentialists of whatever stripe, Christian or atheist, including Heidegger, concur in this: in the human being, existence precedes essence. To make this point clear, Sartre gives the following example:

Let us consider some object that is manufactured, for example, a book or a paper-cutter: here is an object which has been made by an artisan whose inspiration came from a concept. He referred to the concept of what a paper-cutter is and likewise to a known method of production, which is part of the concept, something which is, by and large, a routine. Thus, the paper-cutter is at once an object produced in a certain way and, on the other hand, one having a specific use . . . Therefore, let us say that, for the paper-cutter, essence – that is, the ensemble of both the production routines and the properties which enable it to be both produced and defined – precedes existence.

In the Christian religion, Sartre continues, within which European thought has been formed:

when we conceive God as the Creator, He is generally thought of as a superior sort of artisan . . . Thus, the concept of man in the mind of God is comparable to the concept of paper-cutter in the mind of the manufacturer, and, following certain techniques and a conception, God produces man, just as the artisan, following a definition and a technique, makes a paper-cutter. . . . In the eighteenth century, the atheism of the philosophes discarded the idea of God, but not the notion that essence precedes existence.

Following this line of thought, Sartre says that man:

. . . has a human nature; this human nature, which is the concept of the human, is found in all men, which means that each man is a particular example of a universal concept, man. . . . [B]ut atheistic existentialism, which I represent, is more coherent. It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and that this being is man, or, as Heidegger says, human reality. What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be (Existentialism, 18).

Sartre goes on to clarify this thought still further:

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism. It is also what is called subjectivity, the name we are labeled with when charges are brought against us. But what do we mean by this, if not that man has a greater dignity than a stone or table? For we mean that man first exists, that is, that man first of all is the being who hurls himself toward a future and who is conscious of imagining himself as being in the future. Man is at the start a plan which is aware of itself; . . . nothing exists prior to this plan; . . . man will be what he will have planned to be (Existentialism, 18–19).

Thus, for Sartre, the task is to deduce coherently all possible consequences of the non-existence of God. First, the human being does not have a fixed or unchanging essence; the human essence is constructed upon existence, first as plan or project, that "hurling oneself toward the future," and then as actions. Human beings are free to be whatever they want to be, but in this process of self-formation they have no moral rules to guide them.

Recalling one of the thinkers who inspired existentialism, Sartre notes:

Dostoievski said, "If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible." That is the very starting point of existentialism. . . . [I]f God does not exist, we find no values or commands to turn to that legitimize our conduct. So, in the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind us, nor justification before us. We are alone, with no excuses. That is the idea I try to convey when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does . . . Man, with no support and no aid, is condemned every moment to invent man.

In regard to this responsibility of self-invention through choice, Sartre writes:

When we say that man chooses his own self, we mean that every one of us does likewise; but we also mean that in making this choice we make a choice for all men. In fact, in creating the man that we want to be, there is not a single one of our acts which does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be. To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all.

It is on this foundation that Sartre constructs a social ethics of freedom:

[W]hen, in all honesty, I’ve recognized that man is a being in whom existence precedes essence, that he is a free being who, in various circumstances, can want only his freedom, I have at the same time recognized that I can want only the freedom of others.

Thus, Sartre’s ethics is not based on the thing chosen but rather on the honesty or "authenticity" of the choice. In contrast to his assertions in Being and Nothingness, for Sartre all behaviors are no longer equally lacking in meaning. Although he reiterates that in order to act it is not necessary to have hope, now he also says that action is not necessarily gratuitous, absurd, or without foundation. In fact, even though no sweeping and definitive morality exists, even though every individual is free to construct his or her own morality within the situation he or she lives, by choosing among the various possibilities that present themselves, it is nonetheless possible for the individual to make moral judgments. Such moral judgments are based on the recognition of freedom (one’s own and that of others) and of dishonesty or bad faith – that is, self-deception. Here is how Sartre explains this:

[O]ne can judge . . .that certain choices are based on error and others on truth. If we have defined man’s situation as a free choice, with no excuses and no recourse, every man who takes refuge behind the excuse of his passions, every man who sets up a determinism, is a dishonest man, is in "bad faith" But suppose someone says to me, "What if I want to act in bad faith?"; I’ll answer, "There’s no reason for you not to be, but I’m saying that that’s what you are, and that the strictly coherent attitude is that of honesty." I can bring moral judgment to bear.

Let us now consider in what sense for Sartre existentialism can be said to be a humanism:

[M]an is constantly outside of himself; in projecting himself, in losing himself outside of himself, he makes for man’s existing; and, on the other hand, it is by pursuing transcendent goals that he is able to exist; man, being this state of passing-beyond, is at the heart, at the center of this passing-beyond. There is no universe other than a human universe, the universe of human subjectivity. This connection between transcendency, as a constituent element of man (not in the sense that God is transcendent, but in the sense of passing beyond), and inter-subjectivity (in the sense that man is not closed in on himself but is always present in a human universe) is what we call existentialist humanism. Humanism, because we remind man that there is no law-maker other than himself, and that in his forlornness he will decide by himself; and because we point out that man will fulfill himself as man, not in turning toward himself, but in seeking outside of himself a goal which is just this liberation, just this particular fulfillment.

Sartre himself admitted that the radical antithesis he had drawn between absolute freedom and equally absolute bad faith in his 1943 Being and Nothingness had been inspired by the climate of war, in which there seemed to be no gray but only black and white, no alternative but being fully "for" or fully "against." But after the war came the true experience – the experience of society – that is, the experience of a complex and ambiguous reality charged with nuances and gradations, where the relationship between the determining situation and free will, between conditioning and choice, was neither clear nor direct. In an interview given to the New Left Review in 1969, Sartre offered the following definition of freedom: "Freedom" he said, "is that small movement which makes of a totally conditioned social being someone who does not render back completely what his conditioning has given him."

Even with this more limited definition of freedom, Sartre did not renounce the central themes of his philosophy. Freedom continues to be the center of his problematic. In 1974, six years before his death, in a debate published under the title On a raison de se révolter: discusions (To Rebel is Just) Sartre reaffirmed that human beings can be alienated and objectified precisely because they are free, because they are not things, not even things that are just particularly complex. Human beings are never wholly identifiable with their conditioning; if they were, it would in fact be impossible even to speak of their conditioning. A robot could never be oppressed. Human alienation leads back to human freedom.

EXTERNAL LANDSCAPE. Configuration of reality corresponding to the perception of the external senses as filtered through through the contents of the consciousness. Because the consciousness is an active structure and not merely a passive reflection of "external" reality, the latter appears as a structured "landscape," the e.l., and not as a sum of perceptions or as an isolated structure of the perceptions of the external senses. The e.l. is experienced in the position of the consciousness "toward the outside," which has as a reference the peripheral, tactile-coenesthetic register (*inner landscape).

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