QuestionsWhat makes something right?"You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent"
What makes something right?Morality questioned

"You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent"

Sartre's student ("man is condemned to be free")

Jean-Paul Sartre 1905 · 1980Existence precedes essence: we are condemned to be free.
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What it claims

Man is free and responsible, and no general morality can tell him what he ought to do: he must choose, that is to say, invent.

Why

Neither a human nature, a ready-made morality nor feelings settle it: only the choice itself decides.

The same idea through history
Søren Kierkegaard1843Fear and Trembling: Abraham must decide alone whether the voice commanding him to sacrifice Isaac comes from God, with no general ethics to justify him. Sartre takes up this "anguish of Abraham" without God: each person must decide alone, and no one proves to them that they are right.
Jean-Paul Sartre1946Lecture given in Paris in October 1945 to a large audience, published in 1946: the simplest and most widely read version of his ethics of freedom.
Simone de Beauvoir1947The Ethics of Ambiguity: Beauvoir sets out to show that an existentialist ethics is possible. Freedom is not a ready-made value, and ethics provides no recipes, only methods.
In short

""You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent"" is an argument by Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism Is a Humanism (lecture of 1945, published 1946), 1946) on the question "What makes something right?" (answer: morality questioned). Its claim: Man is free and responsible, and no general morality can tell him what he ought to do: he must choose, that is to say, invent. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Existentialism Is a Humanism (lecture of 1945, published 1946)
Valid with an implicit premise

Paris, 1942 or 1943, under German occupation. A student comes to ask his teacher, Jean-Paul Sartre, for advice. His elder brother was killed in 1940, his father leans towards collaboration. He wants to join the Free French Forces in England. But his mother lives alone with him, and his departure, perhaps his death, would plunge her into despair. What should he do? Sartre answers: "You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent." This is not an evasion. For Sartre, there is neither God nor a human nature that would fix in advance what we must do: we are "condemned to be free". Sartre does not say that anything goes: he says that no ready-made rule chooses for us, and that we are responsible for what we choose.

P1In man, existence precedes essence: there is no human nature fixed in advance, nor any God to conceive it. Man is nothing other than what he makes of himself.
P2So man is "condemned to be free": he did not create himself, but once thrown into the world he is responsible for everything he does, without excuse.
P3No ready-made morality settles the student's case. Christian charity does not say whom to love first, the mother or those who fight; Kant's rule (never treat another merely as a means) condemns both choices at once.
P4Feelings do not settle it either: one only knows how much one loves one's mother by staying with her. Feeling is formed by deeds, so one cannot consult it before acting.
P5 · implicit premiseIf neither a human nature, nor a general morality, nor feelings determine the choice, then nothing outside the choice itself determines it: there is no fourth guide.
Therefore man is free and responsible, and no general morality can tell him what he ought to do: he must choose, that is to say, invent.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a world where there is no human nature, where received moralities and feelings do not settle the matter, and where something else nevertheless guides the choice: for instance a considered judgement that weighs the duties at stake, as doctors or judges do in hard cases.
Valid with P5. Sartre reviews the possible guides (God or a human nature, received moralities, feelings, even a teacher's advice, since choosing one's adviser is already choosing) and concludes that only the choice remains. P5 assumes the list is complete. His opponents propose another guide: practical reason (Kant), practical wisdom, or a ranking of duties.
Analogy. A painter before a blank canvas has no rule telling him which picture to paint. Yet no one accuses him of doing just anything: the picture is judged once it is made. Sartre himself compares moral choice to the creation of a work of art: in both cases one invents, and one answers for it.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Christian critics (quoted by Sartre) 1945 · attacks the conclusion

If God's commandments and eternal values are removed, only caprice remains: everyone can do as he likes, and no one can condemn the actions of others any more. "Invent" amounts to saying: everything is permitted.

Sartre replies
Sartre 1946 · Sartre's reply: to choose is to choose for everyone
In choosing himself, each person chooses all men: to choose an action is to affirm that it is worth doing, and so worth doing for everyone. One must always ask: what would happen if everyone did as I am doing? And one cannot not choose: not choosing is still a choice, which limits fantasy and caprice.
Simone de Beauvoir 1947
Believers use Dostoevsky's formula, "if God does not exist, everything is permitted". But God's absence, far from authorising all licence, does the opposite: man is alone on earth, his acts are definitive commitments, and he bears responsibility for a world that is his own work.
The debate goes on (our summary) The reply rules out caprice, but at a price. If "choosing for all" means asking what would happen if everyone acted so, it is almost Kant's test, and a general rule comes back. If it only means that my choice sketches an image of man, nothing prevents choosing a cruel image. Sartre's readers still debate whether he found a middle way between these two branches.
Kant (and his defenders) 1785 · attacks premise 3

Reason gives a criterion valid for everyone: act only on a maxim one can will to become a universal law, and treat humanity, in oneself as in others, always as an end and never merely as a means. The student is not without a compass: he can examine his maxims.

Sartre replies
Sartre 1946 · Sartre's reply
Applied to this case, Kant's rule does not settle it. If the student stays with his mother, he treats her as an end, but risks treating as means those who are fighting; if he leaves, it is the reverse. No written morality can decide a priori. Hence his answer: no general morality can show what one ought to do.
The debate goes on (our summary) Kantians answer that Kant never promised a calculus that settles every case. His rules forbid certain actions (lying, using others); between two broad duties, such as helping one's mother and helping one's country, they leave room for judgement. So Sartre is right about this case, but not about all of morality: some things no "invention" makes permissible. Sartre himself does not say otherwise, since his criterion of "choosing for all" resembles Kant's test.
Communist critics (quoted by Sartre) 1945 · attacks premise 2

A freedom alone before unguided choices leads to a "quietism of despair": if no solution is grounded, action becomes pointless, and only a contemplative, hence bourgeois, philosophy remains. Real man is not an abstract freedom: he lives in a class and a history that weigh on his choices.

Sartre replies
Sartre 1946 · Sartre's reply
It is the opposite of quietism. Quietism is the attitude of those who say: let others do what I cannot do. Existentialism declares that there is no reality except in action: man is nothing else but the sum of his actions.
The debate goes on (our summary) The second half of the objection, the weight of class and history, is not really dealt with in the lecture. Sartre himself returned to it: in Search for a Method and then the Critique of Dialectical Reason (1957-1960), he treats Marxism as the philosophy of his time and tries to find room for freedom within it, which amounts to granting part of the objection.