Should One Go to War or Not? a Study of Sartre's Student and Austin's Plea for Excuses

Sartre's essay "Existentialism and Humanism" tells the story of a pupil who is given a choice to avenge an elder brother who was killed in the German offensive of 1940 or stay with his mother at home. The student consults with Sartre who advises that the weight of any judgment is in the performance of the action chosen and that one must trust his instincts.

The student has a free choice to make because there is no means of excusing his actions one way or another which rests in the decision itself. If the student stays at home with his mother, his decision is based upon personal devotion and the results would be concrete and immediate. If the student joins the military to satisfy his "burning to avenge" the death of his brother, there may be an infinitely greater end with a nationally collective goal, however, the end would be ambiguous at best and may be frustrated along the way. Whatever the student decides, Sartre says, the student will find a way to justify the decision which creates a kind of subjective "vicious circle" where the student "exists first and defines himself afterwards".

Sartre explains that true existentialism is a doctrine which affirms that every truth and every action imply both an environment and human subjectivity or choice. Rather than blame "human nature" or the essence of man, society enacts rules to constrain behavior. Existentialism believes that existence comes before essence and that we begin from the subjective. Where one does not believe that God exists, then everything is permitted and one cannot explain or justify one's actions by reference to some outside influence. Man would be free with no means for justification or excuse. Sartre says we are tempted to flee from the reality that we are free to choose our destiny, because to acknowledge this would mean that we ourselves decide our being.