Sartre has a radical understanding of responsibility. He seeks to distance the idea of responsibility from juridical notions of blameworthiness and fault. While I didn't understand this on Tuesday, I think that our discussion on Thursday helped clear some things up. By being responsible Sartre means response-able, the ability to respond. I agree with Sartre insofar as we are always able to respond to our situation and the factiticy of being in the world.
Sartre goes on to argue that this notion of radical responsibility leads to a better worldview. I agree with him that people today don’t see themselves in as radically free and responsible. We tend to understand our responsibilities as being those things that we have a direct control over. I agree with Sartre that we are, in a sense, responsible even for those things that we cannot directly control. We cannot simply stand by and be uninvolved. Our stance of ‘uninvolvement’ is a choice that we must take responsibility for. We often short change ourselves about the difference we are capable of making in the world.
Where I’d like to challenge Sartre is on his assertion that the world would be a better place if we all understood and took to heart our radical responsibility for everything in our world. I agree that if each individual took more responsibility for his or her life, he or she would better interact with his or her world. However, if each individual knew that each other individual was also radically responsible for the events around him or her, I think that there would be much less of an incentive to act. Everyone fully understanding his or her responsibility would create a bystander effect. For example, if I understand myself as responsible for the poverty in Memphis, I would probably be more likely to do something. However, if I also believed that every other Memphian was equally responsible for that poverty, I would be much less inclined to do anything about it. I would count on everyone to do the work and only concern myself with what I wanted to do. Since I’m equally responsible for everything else I see around me, there might be other problems I find more important. Because I cannot rank these responsibilities (because I am equally responsible for all of them) I have no justification to choose one over the other.
Ultimately what I think this comes down to is that by saying that everyone is radically responsible for everything equally, the notion of responsibility loses any notion of normativity. Can Sartre reclaim normativity, or does existentialism, by rejecting all moral principles, preclude the notion of normativity all together?
This is a rather interesting thought. I feel almost as if existenialism throws normativity away. Sartre may argue though that this would never happen because of the inverse. It would keep going and going. And is Sartre really saying that ultimate freedom and idea to a better world is linked with response-ability? I'm just not sure if he ever means to say that or says that. I may totally be wrong though.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I honestly never thought of it like that. Even though Sartre's radical sense of responsibility is in good intentions, I agree that people will shrug off responsibility knowing that other's are also responsible. At the end of the day, I do not see Satre's conclusion's as rational; however, I do see his ideas as a call-to-action in the sense that we should be thinking meditatively about our individual responsibility. This is what I like about it. Just not his conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that there would be a bystander effect and lean towards Brian's opinion. Doesn't existentialism go against the norm by default? After everything we have looked at, it seems that existentialism advocates for such principles. For example, we learned earlier that we live by the slave morality rather than the master/noble morality and that existentialism does advocate for the master/noble morality. Sartre says that everyone is response-able, which can cause people to take action for the better. He does not promise that this will bring about a better world, but simply points out that if people notice their choices, then they can respond in a benificial way to the world.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began reading this essay, I thought about the potentiality for a bystander effect before I had reached that passage; I completely agree that universalizing responsibility would, in effect, lower our will to act. However, I do not quite think it appropriate to consider such a radical change in responsibility and not subsequently change the manner in which we think about acting. In the world you have created, we have a dramatic shift in cause that exemplifies a normal effect; I believe our notion of the effect would have to change as much as the former notion. Also, I believe that Sartre intends this shift to be a conscious effort, meaning it is not simply an innate quality of human existence; because of the divorce from the idea of God, humans are free to shape their own definition of themselves: this is an active effort. The attempt to live out this definition of responsibility will likewise require an active effort. Therefore, we would not consider the possible actions of other but only the way in which our participation could benefit.
ReplyDeleteI agree with y'all that there is a possible benefit for the individual who recognizes her radical responsibility. By owning our choices to act (or not to act as the case may be), we could possibly have a better understanding of ourselves. However, I still don't see how society as a whole would be better off.
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