This article focuses on Sartre’s concept of the practicoinert in his major work A Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 1. I first show the progression from Sartre’s previous conception of in-itself to his concept of practico-inert. I identify five different layers of the practico-inert: human-made objects, language, ideas, social objects and class being. I show how these practico-inert layers form the possibilities for our subjectivity and how this represents a change from Sartre’s view of in-itself in Being and Nothingness. I (...) then explore the relationship of freedom to the practico-inert and how Sartre argues that the practico-inert places limits on our freedom. Lastly, I argue that despite the pessimistic picture Sartre paints in CDR, the practico-inert has the potential to both limit and enhance our freedom. I appeal to Sartre’s post-CDR essay ‘A Plea for Intellectuals’ to argue that a Sartrean account of progress requires the utilisation of the practico-inert. (shrink)

A Sartrean existentialist ethics of authenticity model can serve as an alternative to tradi­tional approaches to the issue of moral responsibilities to future generations. Traditional utilitarian and rights-based positions can fall short when addressing future-persons concern, both through technical problems and their failure to show our interconnectedness with other generations. Sartrean concepts of freedom, responsibility, and authenticity can offer an alternative approach which focuses on interpersonal adoption of the Other’s projects. There is bad faith present in the typical discussion about (...) future generations. We need to rid ourselves of this bad faith in order to engage in authentic relationships with humans of the past, present, and future. (shrink)

The Good Place was a historical landmark in the field of pop culture as philosophy, as it was the first mainstream sitcom to explicitly tackle the works of philosophers in its content. In addition to exposing its viewers to the works of famous philosophers, The Good Place makes its own philosophical arguments. The show is ultimately about the concept of the afterlife – what it might look like, how it would operate, and if it is even desirable. The show also (...) explores the relationship between morality and the afterlife. Essentially, The Good Place explores three focal questions: (1) Are there reasons to be morally good, irrespective of how that plays out in an afterlife? (2) What would a fair system for gaining admission to a merit-based afterlife look like? And (3) is an eternal afterlife even desirable? Ultimately the show argues that yes, virtue is worthwhile for virtue’s own sake, irrespective of the consequences in an afterlife. Second, it argues that a fair merit-based system would allow people the chance to improve and get better, given the right circumstances. Third, it argues that an eternal afterlife, in which you maintain your identity and live forever, is not desirable. (shrink)

Detroit Become Human (DBH) offers a stunningly visual gameplay experience that both tells a philosophical story and stimulates the moral reasoning process in players. The game features a futuristic world where highly intelligent androids are bought and sold as workers who take on menial labor tasks for humans. In this chapter, we explore three dimensions of moral reasoning: accounts of moral agency, ethical theories or frameworks, and accounts of moral patiency. We then explore how DBH addresses all of these philosophical (...) issues in its narrative and gameplay scenarios. Issues of moral agency are explored through some of the androids gaining consciousness and autonomy. Ethical theory is explored through various ethical dilemmas that emerge in the gameplay. Moral patiency is explored by questioning if the androids, conscious and unconscious, are worthy of moral concern and why. We then show how the gameplay structure offers a unique interactive opportunity for players to engage in the moral reasoning process. Additionally, through the questions it raises and scenarios it poses, DBH makes an implicit anti-speciesist argument regarding moral patiency. Additionally, it makes a secondary argument that suffering and struggle are necessary to develop the possibility of second-order desires and true freedom and agency. The interactive structure of the game, in which players’ choices have more weight than in many gameplay experiences, makes DBH a unique work of contemporary philosophical pop culture. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of conscience-based refusals in healthcare from a Sartrean view, with an emphasis on the tension between individual responsibility and professional role morality. Conscience-based refusals in healthcare involve healthcare workers refusing to perform actions based on core moral beliefs. Initially this appears in line with Sartrean authenticity, which requires acknowledgment that one is not identical with professional role. However, by appealing to Sartre’s later social thought, I show that professional role morality is authentic when one considers (...) common group practices, which Sartre refers to as pledged group praxis. I demonstrate that for healthcare providers, authenticity mandates putting the goals and generally accepted praxis of healthcare front and center in the workplace decision process. I conclude by strengthening Andrew West’s existentialist decision-making model with Sartre’s later social thought. With the updated model, I show that for healthcare workers most often the authentic decision is to perform generally accepted healthcare procedures in spite of individual moral qualms. This is because working in healthcare necessitates viewing one’s professional tasks in their broader social context—as unified, communal group praxis. (shrink)

This article utilizes the Foucauldian concepts of biopower and normalization to give an analysis of the debate surrounding the controversial administration of the HPV vaccine to adolescents. My intention is not to solve the problem, rather to utilize a Foucauldian framework to bring various facets of the issue to light, specifically the way the vaccine contributes to strategies of power in reference to how young adults develop within relationships of power. To begin, the article provides an overview of the Foucauldian (...) concepts of biopower and normalization, including how these two strategies of power were present in the administration of the smallpox vaccine in the 19th century. Next, information about HPV and the history of the current controversy in the United States is presented. Lastly, the article presents an analysis of the strategies of biopower and normalization present in the debate on HPV, including an emphasis on how the vaccination is similar to, and different from, 19th century smallpox vaccination. It also explores the way that mechanisms of disease control affect and are affected by individual subjects, in this case, adolescents. (shrink)

In Westworld, viewers learn that the timid and mild‐mannered William is the younger version of the violent, sinister, mission‐driven Man in Black. This chapter considers what it means for William to have, as Sartre calls it, an existential project. It shows how Sartre's theory explains quite cogently William's change in essence from his young self to the violent Man in Black. In a Sartrean framework, William did not discover himself in the park, rather, his experience in the park, or new (...) “situation”, led him to make a new choice of himself in the world and pursue a new set of ends. The chapter then examines Maeve's choice to leave the train at the end of the “The Bicameral Mind”. Although Maeve is a programmed android, she is able to resist her programming and formulate her own goal and, perhaps, start her own existential journey. (shrink)

Grey’s Anatomy focuses on the personal and professional life of protagonist Meredith Grey. Throughout the long series, a consistent theme is that the audience is confronted with moral dilemmas in Meredith’s professional work with patients as well as in her personal life. Grey’s decision-making often breaks professional protocol in order to do what she believes is best for her patients and those close to her. We argue that Grey’s approach to morality is representative of Simone de Beauvoir’s approach in The (...) Ethics of Ambiguity. In this text, Beauvoir argues that an existentialist ethic must reject a childlike approach to morality in which moral rules are absolute and moral dilemmas have obvious answers. Instead, she argues for a rejection of universalist ethics in favor of acknowledging the ambiguity of the moral realm. By tracing Meredith’s decision-making throughout the course of different seasons of the show, we argue that Meredith exemplifies an existential authenticity compatible with Beauvoir’s existentialist approach to ethics. (shrink)

This chapter explores the comedy of George Carlin (1937–2008) as a powerful statement about the value of truth over ignorance. Carlin challenged his audience to confront the truth, regularly using clever rhetorical strategies to force viewers to grapple with inconvenient realities about the world in which they lived. This chapter examines historical and contemporary philosophical arguments for the importance of the pursuing truth over comforting fictions. I begin with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which argues it is preferable to know (...) reality as it truly is over appearances of the truth, even when it’s painful or difficult. I then discuss Nozick’s argument that humans would not want to plug into a pleasurable experience machine. Last, I examine contemporary arguments that there are distinctly moral reasons for pursuing the truth. I show how there are examples of all three arguments in Carlin’s comedic work, and suggest we can consider Carlin’s work a critical commentary that reveals multiple reasons for valuing truth over enticing fictions. (shrink)

Rejecting an eternal, unchanging soul or essence, Jean Paul Sartre praises the beauty of the human experience and definitively declares his preference for a temporary life of change and transformation over an eternity of certainty. In The Good Place, Michael is an immortal demon called an architect, who takes on the ambitious task of designing a neighborhood that will prompt condemned humans Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason to unknowingly torture each other. Sartre's existentialism is characterized by his rejection of a (...) pre‐given human essence as well as his focus on the power of individual freedom. In Sartre's view, there is no divine creator, no final judge, and no supernatural moral fabric holding everything together. Throughout the course of four seasons of The Good Place, Michael decides that the project of an eternal certainty is less preferable than a possibly limited lifetime of risk, change, and transformation. (shrink)

In this article I present a comparative analysis of Schopenhauer’s concept of a human’s intelligible character and Sartre’s concept of a human’s fundamental project. My examination reveals that both Schopenhauer and Sartre posit a groundless, baseless choice of identity which unifies a human’s future conscious states into an integrated whole. I also identify the primary difference between the two accounts: Schopenhauer’s intelligible character is permanent, while Sartre’s theory of fundamental project is capable of being transformed or transcended. Last, I show (...) that the divergence on this point can be explained by the position the two philosophers hold with respect to the relationship of existence to essence. For Schopenhauer’s account, I use The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and his Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will. For the analysis of Sartre, I rely on Being and Nothingness and his biography of French writer Jean Genet, titled Saint Genet. (shrink)

Saturday Night Live (SNL) has become a staple of each political season. In this chapter, the authors show how late night comedy programs such as SNL have joined traditional TV news programs as authorities of delimination for defining the boundaries of political truth in historical epoch. SNL is different from other comedy programs such as the The Daily Show because of its focus on parody. SNL featured many sketches focused on the election, which also contributed to the production of the (...) truth. As an authority of delimination for political truth, SNL emphasized the sexist double standard to which Hillary Clinton was held. In short, SNL will continue to play a role in the production of political truth and knowledge. Michel Foucault famously argued that truth and knowledge are neither static nor objective. Foucault shows that different historical epochs and different geographical locations have different frameworks of verification for something to be considered true. (shrink)

Dive into the moral philosophy at the heart of all four seasons of NBC’s The Good Place, guided by academic experts including the show’s philosophical consultants Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and featuring a foreword from creator and showrunner Michael Schur Explicitly dedicated to the philosophical concepts, questions, and fundamental ethical dilemmas at the heart of the thoughtful and ambitious NBC sitcom The Good Place Navigates the murky waters of moral philosophy in more conceptual depth to call into question what (...) Chidi’s ethics lessons—and the show—get right about learning to be a good person Features contributions from The Good Place’s philosophical consultants, Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and introduced by the show’s creator and showrunner Michael Schur Engages classic philosophical questions, including the clash between utilitarianism and deontological ethics in the “Trolley Problem,” Kant’s categorical imperative, Sartre’s nihilism, and T.M Scanlon's contractualism Explores themes such as death, love, moral heroism, free will, responsibility, artificial intelligence, fatalism, skepticism, virtue ethics, perception, and the nature of autonomy in the surreal heaven-like afterlife of the Good Place Led by Kimberly S. Engels, co-editor of Westworld and Philosophy. (shrink)

This article explores the patient experience of medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) from an existentialist standpoint. Drawing on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, I explore their concepts of existential situation, existential project, authenticity, and praxis. I then analyze the situation of MUS patients in the current cultural and institutional context, elucidating that a lack of explanation for their symptoms puts MUS patients in an existential bind. I illustrate the effects of the experience of MUS on patients’ existential (...) projects. Last, I develop an ethical response in the existentialist tradition from the perspective of patients, providers, and society at large. I argue that there is a collective responsibility to foster conditions more conducive to authentic patient well-being and to improve the experience of patients with medically unexplained symptoms. (shrink)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is not an unknown name. The writer, actor, and producer has been a part of various comedy TV series and films. However, she has a pattern in her comedy writing and character creation that is obvious in the TV series – Fleabag (2016–2019) and Crashing (2016). In both these series, one cannot miss the obvious similarity between the characters she wrote and played – characters who knew what they wanted and did not hesitate to make attempts to achieve (...) it, even when it meant defying the conventional rules of social relationships and breaking out of the gender identities set by society for women. In fact, other characters created around these female characters seem to lack the same courage, which leads to the creation of comical situations but also often results in these characters facing emotional obstacles that they eventually overcome. The women in both shows not only choose to reject predefined gender identities, but also make choices and take risks while being aware of the consequences. Throughout their journeys of embracing their free consciousnesses, these characters illustrate Jean Paul Sartre’s and Simone de Beauvoir’s process of transcending their facticity, thus avoiding bad faith. Implicit in Waller-Bridge’s work is the argument that we could do better to be – and encourage other women to be – the types of women that her protagonists are. (shrink)