The Ethics of Choosing Oneself

Being and Nothingness

This thematic thread follows the movement from anguish and responsibility toward an ethics that would have to begin with freedom rather than fixed rules.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

Freedom Before Essence Freedom Before Essence from "Being and Nothingness". Freedom Before Essence Action as Choice An action intentionally modifies the world toward an end. Its meaning cannot be derived from the situation alone.

Freedom Before Essence from "Being and Nothingness". Freedom Before Essence Action as Choice An action intentionally modifies the world toward an end. Its meaning cannot be derived from the situation alone.

Freedom Before Essence Action as Choice An action intentionally modifies the world toward an end. Its meaning cannot be derived from the situation alone. Ethical Stakes Because the agent chooses the end, ethics cannot simply tell the person what a pre-existing nature requires.

The End Reorganizes Causes The End Reorganizes Causes from "Being and Nothingness". The End Reorganizes Causes Projected Meaning Causes and motives appear as reasons only in the light of an end.

The End Reorganizes Causes from "Being and Nothingness". The End Reorganizes Causes Projected Meaning Causes and motives appear as reasons only in the light of an end.

The End Reorganizes Causes Projected Meaning Causes and motives appear as reasons only in the light of an end. The agent's project organizes the situation into a field of relevant meanings. Consequence Deliberation does not create freedom from neutral facts; it takes place within a choice that has already given those facts weight.

The Will's Place The Will's Place from "Being and Nothingness". The Will's Place Not a Separate Faculty The will is not a privileged power standing apart from passion.

The Will's Place from "Being and Nothingness". The Will's Place Not a Separate Faculty The will is not a privileged power standing apart from passion.

The Will's Place Not a Separate Faculty The will is not a privileged power standing apart from passion. Both are ways the for-itself pursues ends it has chosen. Reflection Volition can reassess means and motives, but it cannot become the foundation of freedom or erase the deeper project.

The Meaning of Responsibility

The Meaning of Responsibility No Excuse The person cannot choose not to exist or not to choose. Even withdrawal and refusal are ways of assuming a situation. World-Making Responsibility extends to the meanings by which the world appears. Freedom does not control every outcome, but it owns its projects.

An Ethics Still to Come An Ethics Still to Come from "Being and Nothingness". An Ethics Still to Come Ontology's Boundary Ontology can describe freedom and the origin of values, but it cannot derive moral rules from those descriptions…

An Ethics Still to Come from "Being and Nothingness". An Ethics Still to Come Ontology's Boundary Ontology can describe freedom and the origin of values, but it cannot derive moral rules from those descriptions…

An Ethics Still to Come Ontology's Boundary Ontology can describe freedom and the origin of values, but it cannot derive moral rules from those descriptions alone. Open Question A future ethics must ask what freedom should do once it recognizes itself as the source of value and responsibility.

Part Four, Chapter One, opening

Part Four, Chapter One, discussion of motive and cause

Part Four, Chapter One, discussion of will

Part Four, Chapter One, final discussion

Conclusion, Section II