How do atheistic existentialism feel about family

For Camus, Meursault is morally superior to those around him—despite his crime—because he recognizes the truth of the human condition and insists on this truth despite the punishment he thereby incurs. But why does Camus think that truth has such value?

He has inherited the Christian assumption that spiritual truth has greater value than physical life. From the s onwards existentialism declined in popularity. Camus died prematurely in , while Sartre moved away from his classic existentialism to synthesize it with Marxism, above all in his Critique of Dialectical Reason of Sartre turned to Marxism in the effort to conceptualize how social structures and institutions constrain and limit individual freedom. The rise of French post-structuralism in Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and others in the s reinforced this intellectual turn away from individual subjectivity towards social structures that precondition individuals.

These developments have inclined many recent continental philosophers away from existentialism, whilst Anglo-American philosophers have often regarded existentialism, especially that of Sartre, as unnecessarily obscure and metaphysically excessive. Nonetheless, some contemporary thinkers pursue lines of thought opened up by Sartre and his co-workers.

Aronson aims to provide a coherent secular account of how we ought to live, based—apparently contrary to Sartre—not on our autonomy but on our dependence on others. We today, Aronson holds, depend upon and enjoy the inherited benefits of a long historical and ongoing process of human self-development.

We therefore owe gratitude to past and present generations and their labours, and to the natural ecosystemic and evolutionary preconditions of these labours Aronson : Yet the benefits of this vast historical process are very unequally distributed.

This obligates me to try to distribute its benefits more fully to those who currently share unequally in them, and to work for institutional social changes that would further equality. Although I have not chosen to benefit disproportionately from history, if this is my situation it nonetheless generates obligations that I ought to take up, Aronson argues—agreeing with Sartre that, unchosen as my situation invariably is, I cannot evade my responsibility for what I make of it ibid.

But what hope can I have, with no God to guarantee that justice will eventually be realized at the end of history, to think that universal human equality can ever be achieved? Insofar as I do act with others in pursuit of social justice, Aronson argues, I gain increased confidence in our collective powers to advance equality and p. Aronson hopes to have greater success than Sartre in establishing this wholly secular ethic of human emancipation by starting from dependency rather than autonomy.

If I recognize that I benefit disproportionately from the historical process, why should I not simply feel fortunate and cling on to my benefits?

But this principle that we are all equal is arguably a Christian legacy—as Hegel maintained in his lectures on world history of the s:. The Germanic [northern European] nations, with the rise of Christianity, were the first to recognise that humanity is by nature free […] This consciousness first dawned in religion […] but to incorporate the same principle into secular existence was a further problem, [fundamental to] the long process of […] history itself.

Hegel [s] : Acknowledging dependency need not mean uncritical acceptance, but can form a starting-point for re-evaluating and re-interpreting these sources—deciding how to take forward our moral-religious inheritance. To recognize our dependency on the collective historical process as Aronson recommends, we should also recognize our ethical dependency on the evaluative horizons of Christianity. Anderson, T. Find this resource:. Aronson, R. Bell, L. Braddock, G. Daigle ed. Camus, A. The Rebel , trans.

Bower Harmondsworth: Penguin. The Myth of Sisyphus , trans. The Outsider , trans. Laredo Harmondsworth: Penguin. Force of Circumstance , trans. Howard Harmondsworth: Penguin. Dostoevsky, F. The Brothers Karamazov , trans. Garnett New York: Lowell Press. Frank, J. Hegel, G. Nisbet Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jeanson, F. Sartre and the Problem of Morality , trans. Kierkegaard, S. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments , vol. Hong and E. Nietzsche, F. Twilight of the Idols with The Anti-Christ , trans.

Hollingdale Harmondsworth: Penguin. The Gay Science , trans. Nauckhoff Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oaklander, L. Sartre, J. Being and Nothingness , trans. Hazel E. Barnes London: Routledge. The Age of Reason , trans. Caute Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mairet, in S.

Priest ed. Notebooks for an Ethics , trans. Translations are sometimes modified in light of the original French texts without special notice. But in every case moral frameworks are part of broader frameworks of comprehensive belief, which are often religious and sometimes theistic. In the European context in which existentialism arose and—as in the USA—retains currency, the frameworks of belief underpinning morality have, historically, been overwhelmingly Christian.

This context shapes how the existentialists frame the issues around religion and morality. Anderson : 63—4 therefore suggests that, for Sartre, reason can only guide our choices if we first choose to value reason.

But this would again leave Sartre unable to condemn those who choose the inconsistent course of advancing their own freedom while violating that of others.

Without taking reason as an absolute value, Sartre cannot avoid moral relativism. Other topics on which she has published articles include the Frankfurt School and the Early German Romantics, on whom she is currently completing a monograph. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.

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Subscriber sign in You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Username Please enter your Username. Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. This does not mean, however, that existentialism and theism or existentialism and religion are completely incompatible.

Despite his philosophy, Sartre always claimed that religious belief remained with him — perhaps not as an intellectual idea but rather as an emotional commitment.

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