Vol. 10 · No. 1 · 2004
'Unappropriable' FreedomSantoni, Sartre and the Question of Authenticity - a Response to Karsten Harries
Daniel L. Tate
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Vol. 10 · No. 1 · 2004'Unappropriable' FreedomSantoni, Sartre and the Question of Authenticity - a Response to Karsten Harries Daniel L. Tate
AbstractThe crux of this debate, however, concerns the question as to whether authenticity is moral. While Harries agrees that authenticity requires that human existence accept 'its inability to be its own foundation', he remains doubtful whether positing freedom as a value can provide the measure and guidance for action in concrete situations (Harries p.33). After all, I may choose to bind my action to this or that value, but that choice itself is grounded in my freedom and hence ultimately unjustifiable. As the foundation of value, freedom resists its own re-appropriation as a value. But, according to Santoni's account, it is precisely as such a situated, yet 'unappropriable', freedom that authentic existence assumes responsibility for itself. This becomes an on-going and concrete responsibility for how one lives out the meaning of that freedom through one's active engagement with the world. |