The first evidence that man could separate himself from instinct, and thus show an awareness of his own “Self” can be found about 40,000 years ago. Homo sapiens and Neanderthal both have been given credit for this achievement. According to Mike Marshall in an article done by New Science Life, the first artwork ever done was a red dot about 40,800 years ago. By 37,000 years ago the drawings were of hand outlines and objects found in nature, (the paintings are covered in calcite, a carbon mineral, and some suggest they may be far older). (Marshall). This artwork showed that man was beginning to create a sense of himself, and separating this self from objects he observed outside of himself. The first objectification of nature and the world as an empiric history.
As Man grew, and Neanderthal died, his abilities and artwork continued to grow, between 40,000 years ago and 15,000 years ago man, (modern humans) had settled in every corner of the world. By 10,000 years ago they had settled on the Pacific Islands as well. With this great migration, artwork also grew, and evolved. This evidence showed that man’s conceptual abilities, and his awareness, were growing as well. (Pearson, p63).
Around 8000 B.C. farming communities were widespread in Asia, and soon thereafter around the world. At around 3000 B.C. man’s first literary works began, mainly in the Mesopotamia, and Nile River areas. Art had advanced considerably with culture, and with it came a history of man creating God(s) and other mythical things which were objects mixed together, but in their totality not empirically seen in the natural world. An example would be the God Anubis, an Egyptian God who had the head of a Jackal, and the body of a Man. Man had gone beyond describing what was in the empiric world, and created new objects which were only in his cognitive world.
Taking the animals and objects, and visions of themselves man soon populated the cosmos with anthropomorphic God(s), and soon with the advent of Greek Civilization put manlike characters with human emotions into the stars. Gods who behaved like humans at first ruled the Greek Civilization, and then as leisure time for the ruling class and their instructors grew, so did man’s education, and the sophistication of his God(s). (Kitto, 68)
With the advent of early Philosophers, and especially Plato, the concept of God(s) went beyond the image of animals and man himself, and began to become a true force of cognition. Reason and logic replaced anthropomorphic symbols, and God(s) became an ideal. Something which was beyond the empiric senses, and something that was in the ideal sense, immortal. Then Plato, the church, and others took this immortal ideal of God(s), and placed him as creator of the universe, objectified him in the cosmos, and created the concept of the soul to reach God(s), or utopia. With this concept using the dialectic method, Plato condemned the body of Man, and elevated cognition, (the soul), to join God in immortality and ideal heaven. In a History of Western Philosophy, Noble Prize Winner, Bertrand Russell describes Plato’s ideas on immortality:
“Death says Socrates, is the separation of soul and body. Here we come upon Plato’s dualism: between reality and appearance, ideas and sensible objects, reason and sense perception, soul and body. These pairs are connected: the first in each pair being superior to the second, both in reality and goodness.” (Russell, p134)
With the advance of Science and Technology man soon began to question these unempirical ideas about God(s) and heaven. As the common man grew in intelligence and education church doctrine and ideas that could not be proven with scientific regularity were cast aside, and so was for many, the idea of ideals and God(s). Some like Nietzsche, declared God was dead, and men like Descartes looked inward to perception and cognition for the creation of their own worlds. Man was faced with a God(s) who could not be found empirically, and nature which was empirical but gave no chance for more than life with its only possible empirical outcome, death. As Sartre states in Existentialism Is a Humanism:
“In the eighteenth century, the atheism of the Philosophers discarded the idea of God, but not so much for the notion essence proceeds existence.” (Sterba, p319)
Sartre, de Beauvoir and other Existentialists grew up in a new era, a time of world wars, growing political idealism, bigotry, and breaking of traditional thought. These Existentialists would soon rock the philosophical world with a new view of man and nature. Sartre’s view of life and mankind was shaped by his experiences as, a teacher, a soldier, a prisoner of war, an activist, and a scholar. He lived in many places with many cultures, and as a result understood the common man perhaps more than his academia teachers. (Marino, p337-339)
Sartre took the ideas of evolution that Darwin used to describe the evolution of species, and used this same paradigm of thought to understand Man and God(s). For Sartre, God(s) did not create Man; Man created God(s). That is, as I described earlier, man existed first and as he evolved he created God(s). Using the idea of “Existence before Essence”, Sartre describes how mortality, freedom, and anxiety have caused man to create something to alleviate a life in nature that sub-consciously they understand is chaotic and mortal. (Marino, 346)
Sartre rejects the earlier ideas of most philosophers that the individual man has an ideal outside of himself (a priori), which is a reflection of its more pure form; much like Plato’s idea of prisoners in a cave only being able to comprehend shadows of a real object. (Russell, p125). He states that man creates his own ideal, (essence), and projects it out into the universe. That is, man creates the ideas that will later shape the evolution of man’s ideal about himself and his God(s):
“Atheistic Existentialism, which I represent, is more coherent. It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence proceeds essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept; and that this being is man, or as Heidegger says, human reality.” (Sterba, p319)
This has great implications for man and the church. Man can no longer logically cry to the heavens for help, he cannot be guaranteed a stairway to heaven, or a push into hell. His actions are no longer to be weighed against a scale of good and evil from a higher power. He cannot condemn others with different beliefs, for not following his faith, myths, religion, morality, or other ideas, because everyone is now equal under death.
These implications are what Sartre believes create a sub-conscious need to find value in an individual’s life. Man must now be responsible for his own life, morality, and actions, and this causes a great anxiety in himself. This anxiety for Existentialism, Sartre describes as forlornness:
“When we speak of forlornness, a term Heidegger was fond of, we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all the consequences of this.” (Sterba, 321)
Man no longer has something to keep him from doing what he wishes. He no longer can justify his actions as being a higher powers’ will. He cannot beg, cry, or pray for help when he is in danger, or forgiveness for things he does that he is ashamed of. He cannot kill, maim, and rape others who do not have the same beliefs as himself as the Spanish Conquistadors did. He is responsible for all he is, and does. This the forlornness that Sartre believes all men try to bury inside themselves.
So how can man justify his actions if he no longer has a God(s)? Sartre goes back to the evolved ideal of man, the common sense of morality that men have, the instinctual gut feeling of what is right and wrong. Of treating others as we would wish to be treated, to being humane.
“If values are vague, and if they are always too broad for the concrete and specific case that we are considering, the only thing left for us is to trust our instincts.” (Sterba, 323)
So where do these instincts come from? There is a new branch of philosophy called Experimental Philosophy which shows that how a person feels about something, creates an instinctive moral choice making decisions before cognition. To explain this quickly we will use an example done by Dr. Joshua Greene of Harvard University who uses the example of a man who has is standing next to a lever that can change a trolley’s destination on a pair of tracks:
“First, we have the switch dilemma: A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. You can save these five people by diverting, (by pulling a lever), the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only one person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed. Is it morally permissible to turn the trolley and thus prevent five deaths at the cost of one? Most people say "Yes."
Then we have the footbridge dilemma: Once again, the trolley is headed for five people. You are standing next to a large man on a footbridge spanning the tracks. The only way to save the five people is to push this man off the footbridge and into the path of the trolley. Is that morally permissible? Most people say "No." (Greene)
Dr. Greene found that when these questions were asked while the brain was being monitored in subjects; that the areas of the brain used for processing were different. The first question showed activity in an area of the brain being used for reason and logic, the second question showed brain activity in a more emotional primitive area of the brain. Dr. Greene believes that we as human beings have an instinctual or biological set of morals that we follow in emergency situations, or even when thinking about them. (Harvard Magazine)
This is what Sartre describes also in the common man. That without the existence of God(s) or a higher power, each man must check his instincts to do what he thinks is morally right.
Sartre also describes another aspect of sub-conscious moral choices that men make. This is how a person chooses another person to go to for advice when faced with a moral question. Using the example of a student who must choose between enlisting to help his country, and the moral obligation of caring for his aging mother. Sartre shows that the person we choose for advice, is subconsciously the person that we wish to agree with a choice we have already made:
“If the young man chooses a priest who is resisting on collaborating, he has already decided on the kind of advice he is going to get. Therefor, in coming to see me, he knew the answer I was going to give him, and I only had one answer to give: ‘Your free, choose, that is invent.’” (Sterba, p324).
Sartre believes that his student sub-consciously chose him, because he would give him the answer he already wished to choose. This is another aspect of man that Existentialists state causes anxiety in man. This being the freedom to choose for ourselves.
Without a God(s) or a higher power, man must live with the choices he makes. He cannot be bent to a God(s)’s will, or justify his choices as being better than another person. If he kills another man, it is not Satan or an evil entity who caused it, it is himself. This responsibility that freedom poses for man, without something to pardon or explain his own mistakes, and/or lack of character as he lives is just too much for many to live comfortably with. These people look for things to justify their actions so they can feel better about themselves and the choices they make.
So if God(s) are not real and man is mortal, besides are gut instinctual morality, where can we look for guidance on morality, and how we should act as men? Sartre says we must choose for ourselves individually, but we must choose to be the men we wish others to be. In effect we must lead by example, using the golden rule, Do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you. The Existentialists and Sartre believe we must step up to the plate, if you will, and take responsibility for our lives. We have to recognize our freedom, and accept all of our decisions as our own. We cannot step into myth and religion believing that someone or something else is directing us. We must choose to be moral, much like a painter chooses to paint. We are all men, and we must treat each other as men. Taking the good with the bad, on the road we call life. (Wartenberg, p141).
Personal Note:
Sartre and most of the existentialists do not believe in the existence of God. That God is not something we can use to guide our lives. I believe empirically all that the existentialists say, but think they have forgotten or ignored a key point. Man was before God(s), and grew with man as he evolved. Man constantly during this growth, put forth different versions and descriptions of God(s) and the morality which comes with the different versions of them. For the most part he poured his ideals of Justice, Mercy, Morality, Goodness, and Love into his concepts of God(s). While doing this he did create an Ideal God(s). Not a God(s) who is an object or force in nature, but an idea of man of what a God(s) of man should be.
While we should never turn to the absurd, or dogmatic religions, we should not toss the Ideal God away. For this is our own conception of the best there is in ourselves or of what we can be, an example of what we can strive for to be more moral and evolved. While we must temper this with the knowledge that we will all die individually, it is our ideals as men, and our Ideal God that is immortal. Thus we must be brave and strive to live using self-created immortal ideals, the best and most moral things we can conceive of, knowing that we will die and they will live on. As Sartre states himself, morality should be considered the highest art of man.
Kitto, H.D.F., The Greeks, (1985), Penguin Books, Middlesex, England
Marino, Gordon, Basic Writings of Existentialism, (2004), Modern Library, NY, NY
Marshal, Mike, Oldest confirmed cave art is a single red dot” New Scientist Life, (Referenced from: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21925-oldest-confirmed-cave-art-is-a-single-red-dot.html?full=true#.Uc98gzZ6e1s)