Summary: Being and Nothingness (page 8)

Sartre continues in the first person: I can attempt to reclaim the being that I am, which exists at a distance in the Other: I become a project aimed at recovering my being ¹. This recovery is only possible if one assimilates the freedom of the Other. This is the essence of love: taking hold of the freedom of the Other.

The lover does not desire the subjugation of the beloved. They do not wish to become the object of a mechanical passion or to be loved through psychological determinism—for such love would be devalued: They do not want to possess a mere mechanism ².

In fact, the lover does not seek to possess the beloved as one possesses a thing. Instead, they demand a unique form of possession: they want to possess freedom as freedom ³. They desire to be loved by a free being, but paradoxically, they also demand that this freedom, as freedom ⁴ no longer be free to leave them, abandon them, or withdraw their love.

This dynamic brings immense happiness:

Before being loved, our existence appeared to be unjustified and absurd, a mere projection into the world. But now, this existence is desired by a free being that we, in turn, desire with our own freedom. This is the essence of the joy of love: to feel justified in existing ⁵.

Yet love is always destined to fail, for three reasons:

It creates an infinite regress, as to love means wanting to be wanted by the one I love ⁶. The Other’s autonomy always allows for the possibility of a moment of lucidity, in which they can relegate me to the position of an object. This creates a constant insecurity in love. Finally, love, which aspires to be absolute, is constantly undermined by the presence of others. To achieve perfect love, one would need to exist alone in the world with the beloved.

2. The Second Attitude: Indifference, Desire, Hatred

The second type of attitude is to turn the Other into an object.

For example, in indifference: others become mere objects or functions. A ticket inspector is reduced to a function—to punch tickets, and nothing more. There are people who live and die without ever—except in rare and terrifying moments of clarity—suspecting what the Other truly is ⁷.

Another example is desire. Desire does not necessarily imply the sexual act but reveals the facticity of the body — one's body experienced as flesh.

Desire, however, is also destined for failure: its culmination is pleasure, which marks its end.

Part IV: Having, Doing, and Being

Sartre now turns to these three cardinal categories, which encompass all human conduct ⁸. For instance, knowing is nothing more than a modality of having.

Action, Sartre explains, is always intentional. For example, a smoker who accidentally causes a powder keg to explode has not truly acted.

Action is guided by a motive (contrary to those who advocate a freedom of pure indifference — action without motives), but this does not imply adherence to determinism. In fact, it is the for-itself that grants a motive its value as a motive.

This is why freedom is the essence of my being ⁹—a reality Sartre famously rephrases as: I am condemned to be free ¹⁰.

Sartre distinguishes between the reason and the motive for an action:

The reason is the explanation of an act, the set of rational considerations that justify it ¹¹.

The motive, on the other hand, is a subjective fact—a combination of desires, emotions, and passions that propel me towards a specific act ¹².

Contrary to the claims of determinism, a reason cannot determine an action—not even within the rational calculation of motives involved in deliberation. In fact, when I deliberate, the decision has already been made ¹³.

Sartre acknowledges a common-sense objection to freedom: the apparent powerlessness of the human condition :

I was born a worker, French, with tuberculosis. The story of a life, whatever it may be, is the story of failure. The coefficient of adversity of things is such that it takes years of patience before the smallest result is obtained. [...] Far more than human beings seem to 'make themselves,' they appear to 'be made' by climate and land, race and class ¹⁴.

Sartre responds that the coefficient of adversity arises through human beings themselves. A rock resists if one tries to move it, but offers valuable assistance if one climbs it to enjoy the view. In itself, the rock is neutral—it awaits a purpose to reveal itself either as an adversary or an ally ¹⁵.

Certainly, there is an irreducible residue that belongs to the in-itself (e.g., some rocks are more or less suitable for climbing). Yet rather than limiting freedom, it is precisely against this resistance that freedom asserts itself as freedom.

There is freedom only in a resistant world.¹⁶.

This is what Sartre refers to as the situation: the contingency of freedom within the fullness of being (its plenum). The situation is a joint product of the contingency of the in-itself and freedom—a complex phenomenon in which the being-for-itself cannot fully distinguish the contribution of freedom from that of brute existence ¹⁷.

Thus, freedom exists only in situation, and situation exists only through freedom ¹⁸.

¹ ibid., p.404
² ibid., p.407
³ ibid.
⁴ ibid.
⁵ ibid., p.411
⁶ ibid., p.416
⁷ III, 2, p.421
⁸ Part IV, p.475
⁹ I, 1, p.483
¹⁰ ibid, p.484
¹¹ ibid., p.490
¹² ibid., p.491
¹³ ibid., p.495
¹⁴ I, 2, p.527
¹⁵ ibid.
¹⁶ ibid., p.528
¹⁷ ibid., p.532-533
¹⁸ ibid., p.534