The war according to sartre

Could it be that all of the major ethical theories— deontology , utilitarianism , natural law , contract theory —-abstract to speak to an amorphous ethical reality? But perhaps precision in ethics is a chimera. The philosophers known as existentialists generally believed that all the major theories discuss thus far were mistaken—for precisely these reasons.

Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical movement whose origins are in the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard — and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche — Existential philosophy is incredibly rich and diverse and its proponents include communists, socialists, atheists, theists, and nihilists. Despite this diversity, almost all existentialists share a few basic ideas that are relevant to our discussion.

Kierkegaard made this point in his famous retelling of the biblical story of Abraham and his son Isaac. From an ethical point of view Abraham action was immoral, but for Kierkegaard faith and religion transcend reason and ethics. These considerations lead to the first basic idea of existentialism: reason is an inadequate instrument with which to comprehend the depth, mystery, and meaning of life.

But as we saw in the first chapter, Western philosophy began when the Greeks used reason to understand the world. Greek rationalism led to a search for the rational and objective foundations of knowledge, meaning, truth, and value. The existentialists reject this tradition. They repudiate the abstract, obtuse, specialized, esoteric, and formal subtlety which divorces the intellect from life.

Theory, speculation, and metaphysical and moral abstraction are worth less than concrete reality. Thus existentialism emphasizes concrete, personal experience over rational abstractions.