Choice, responsibility and bad faith in Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophy

Abstract

Existentialist philosophy portrays the human being as a being who stands out from the rest of the universe simply by being. Man is a being who is existence rather than possessing it as a property. In his book being and Nothingness, Sartre demonstrated that man is not a self-identical being in the same way that other beings are. All other beings in the world are self-identical entities, meaning they are immobile and closed. They constantly remain what they are, with no prospect of expanding or changing into something different. In contrast to these beings, humans are distinguished by an openness that has a split within it.