To the Charge that Existentialism
Undermines Ethics, How Would Sartre and de
Beauvoir Respond?” Consider all three:
(1) As a 20th-century school of philosophy,
existentialism sees itself as radically questioning
traditional authority, traditional philosophy, and (for
writers such as Sartre and Beauvoir) traditional
religion. Making good reference to Bakewell, explain
just how dramatic a challenge their existentialism is to
tradition.
(2) Given this radical challenge to tradition, does it
follow that existentialism, particularly as advanced by
these two writers, entails the denial of ethics such that
anything is permissible?
(3) Why does Bakewell see existentialism to be
philosophy as improvisation and what does this
mean for our pursuit of “truth”? Doesn’t such an
emphasis on improvisation undercut any defense of
existentialism having an ethics?
