Research Paper on:
Responsibility and Freedom According to Jean Paul Sartre

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
a nature, and that people are responsible for all situations they encounter. His most fundamental point is: "Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the  first principle of existentialism." Of course, if choice is completely open-ended, if freedom means entitlement to do and every kind of action that can be imagined, how would such freedom  have an impact on human beings in terms of how they exist in the social realm that includes other human beings? Therein lies the question that requires that the issue  of responsibility be addressed. The Responsibility of Existence "But if existence really does precede essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, existentialisms first move is to make  every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. And when we say that a man is responsible for himself,  we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men" (Sartre 36). In saying that, Sartre makes it clear  that freedom involves responsibility. However, even this distinction does not and would not actually restrict freedom in the most theoretical sense. An individual can choose who he or she is  to be and how they will act. That freedom is simply and fundamentally implicit in being a human being. But that freedom has an equal degree of responsibility in that  the person who chooses one action over another must also take responsibility for having made that choice. Sartre then moves on to expand on such an idea of responsibility by  stating his belief that because an individual is responsible for their own individuality, he or she is also responsible for everyone. He elaborates on this idea by noting: "In