How Sartre’s Notion of Being Radially Free Without a Plan is Both Empowering and Terrifying
We all know Sartre’s infamous line: “Man is condemned to be free.” It gets quoted like a mic drop—usually followed by a head nod and a grim smile. But honestly, I’ve always felt like that line hides more than it reveals.
It’s not just that we’re stuck making choices without a divine plan to fall back on. It’s that we’re ontologically responsible for meaning itself. That’s heavier than people usually let on.
I want to push this a little further than the typical “freedom equals responsibility” reading.
Sartre isn’t just saying we have to own our actions—he’s saying we’re the ones who invent the very idea that actions matter. It’s a bit like being dropped in a world with no rules, no instructions, and still being told, “Figure it out—and whatever you come up with, it’s your fault.”
And weirdly, that’s where things get interesting.
Freedom Isn’t About Choice—It’s About Nothingness
If we really want to dig into Sartre’s idea of radical freedom, I think we’ve got to move past the moral frame—past the ethics of decision-making and into what’s actually happening in the structure of consciousness. Because Sartre isn’t just talking about what we do, he’s talking about what we are. And what we are, according to Being and Nothingness, is a kind of walking contradiction.
Let’s start here: we are nothing.
I mean that literally. Consciousness, for Sartre, is a negation—a nothingness (néant) that disrupts being. That’s why the pour-soi, the for-itself, is free: it’s not a substance, it’s a lack.
We’re not things that have freedom—we’re the space in which freedom happens.
This is where I think things get misunderstood. People often treat Sartre’s freedom as some kind of existential autonomy—like a glorified version of free will.
But Sartre isn’t interested in free will in any classical sense. He’s not saying we get to do whatever we want.
He’s saying that there’s no metaphysical essence that determines who we are, and because of that, we’re stuck being the ones who have to make meaning out of nothing.
Let me give you a concrete example. Take the classic waiter in bad faith. On the surface, it looks like he’s faking, right? Acting like a waiter instead of just being himself.
But Sartre’s point is subtler—and deeper. The waiter isn’t just lying to others; he’s lying to himself by pretending he is something fixed. But here’s the kicker: he kind of has to.
Because if he truly embraced the fact that there’s no “waiter essence,” no core self, no blueprint to follow—he’d collapse under the weight of that freedom.
So yes, we’re “condemned” to freedom, but that condemnation is structural. We don’t get to choose whether to be free. Freedom is what it means to be conscious.
Every time we reflect, every time we become aware of ourselves as not this or not that—we’re exercising freedom in its purest form: as negation.
Now, here’s where I want to push things. What if freedom, as Sartre defines it, is less about decision and more about existential destabilization?
That is, consciousness doesn’t just make choices—it unmakes the world. The moment we become aware of something, we pull it out of the flow of being and hold it up as a possible object for action, interpretation, or refusal. That’s what Sartre means when he says “existence precedes essence.” It’s not a slogan—it’s a metaphysical earthquake.
Let me throw one more idea out there: freedom doesn’t just make meaning possible—it makes meaning impossible to finalize.
If we’re always choosing, always reinterpreting, then nothing ever sticks. Even our attempts to be “authentic” are provisional, because authenticity is a choice too—and that means it can’t be fixed, either.
So maybe Sartre’s radical freedom isn’t heroic. Maybe it’s tragic. Or better yet—maybe it’s absurd.
Not in the Camusian sense of the absurd, but in the sense that we’re haunted by possibilities we never fully choose and meanings we never fully master.
We’re not free to be ourselves—we’re free from being anything at all. And that’s both our curse and our creative power.
Owning the Whole Damn Thing Since Responsibility Isn’t Just Moral
Here’s where I want to dig in and maybe ruffle a few feathers.
Sartre’s talk of freedom almost always gets paired with his idea of responsibility—but that pairing is usually framed in moral or ethical terms. Like: “You’re free, so you’re responsible for what you do. Don’t blame God, society, or your upbringing. Own it.” And that’s fine, as far as it goes. But I think it actually misses the bigger, stranger, and scarier point Sartre is trying to make.
Because for Sartre, responsibility isn’t just about actions. It’s ontological. It’s about being.
Here’s the line that gets overlooked (from Existentialism Is a Humanism):
“In fashioning myself I fashion man.”
Not “I fashion myself as a man” or “I make my own life.” No—I create the meaning of humanity itself through my choices. That’s wild. He’s saying we’re responsible not only for ourselves, but for the very idea of what it means to be human. That’s not just ethical responsibility. That’s metaphysical responsibility.
This is where Sartre starts to sound less like a philosopher of freedom and more like a metaphysical anarchist. If there’s no human essence, then every time we act, we’re deciding what kind of being we are—and we’re doing that in full awareness that there is no backing logic to support us.
And this means: when we act, we aren’t just expressing values. We’re creating the horizon in which values make sense at all.
Let me give you an example. Say I decide to become a parent. That’s not just a personal lifestyle choice, in Sartre’s terms. By committing to it authentically, I’m not just saying “parenthood is good for me”—I’m projecting the idea that parenthood is a legitimate way of being-human. And since there’s no essence or natural law telling me what being-human should look like, I’m taking responsibility for that meaning.
Now zoom out.
Every act—every value I adopt, every identity I claim, every path I follow—creates a little ripple in the ontological field, reshaping what “human” can mean. And since I’m free, and since I’m aware, I don’t get to say “that’s just the way it is.” Because there is no “way it is.” There’s only what I do—and what that implies.
Sartre doesn’t spell this out, but the implication is huge: being human is a collaborative, ongoing metaphysical project, and every one of us is a co-author, whether we like it or not.
Now—here’s where it gets heavier. If we’re responsible for meaning itself, then we’re also responsible for meaninglessness. Not just morally—but ontologically. If we act in bad faith, if we collapse into roles, if we refuse to choose—we’re still choosing. And what we’re choosing is a world in which freedom is denied, in which the project of meaning-making is deferred or sabotaged.
That’s why bad faith matters so much to Sartre. It’s not hypocrisy—it’s ontological cowardice. It’s the refusal to take up the burden of being the one who creates meaning, and the attempt to pretend that meaning comes from somewhere else—God, biology, culture, fate, whatever.
But the catch is: those frameworks only exist if we keep them alive. They’re projections too.
So yeah, freedom comes with responsibility. But not just for your choices. You’re responsible for the very conditions of meaning itself. And that, I think, is where Sartre really cuts deep. Because it’s not just about living a moral life. It’s about recognizing that existence doesn’t mean anything—until we make it mean something. And once we do, we’re the ones who have to carry the weight of that meaning.
And honestly?
That’s a kind of responsibility that’s more than moral. It’s existential gravity.
Five Ways Sartre’s Freedom Still Haunts Us
Let’s shift gears. I want to lay out five big ideas—ones that I think still haven’t been fully digested in the Sartrean framework.
Each one is a bit of a provocation, something to sit with or maybe argue with. Either way, I think they show just how radical Sartre’s notion of freedom actually is.
1. Freedom Isn’t Empowering—It’s Destabilizing
This one’s subtle but important.
We love to talk about freedom as a kind of empowerment. But Sartre’s version is closer to existential vertigo. Think about how he describes nausea, or the feeling of standing at the edge of a cliff. That’s what freedom feels like: not strength, but disorientation. To be free is to realize that nothing is nailed down—and it never will be.
2. We’re Responsible for Meaninglessness Too
We often think that if life is meaningless, that’s just the way the universe is. But Sartre flips that. Meaninglessness isn’t something that just happens to us—it’s something we allow when we refuse to choose. So in a weird twist, even nihilism becomes something we’re accountable for. If the world feels empty, it’s not because it is. It’s because we failed to fill it.
3. Bad Faith Isn’t a Flaw—It’s a Feature
This one stings. We like to think of bad faith as a moral failing or a weakness. But the deeper you go into Sartre, the more it starts to look like bad faith is built into the structure of consciousness. After all, if the for-itself is a nothingness trying to be something, how could it ever escape self-deception? Bad faith might be the price of being a self at all.
4. Authenticity Is Always Provisional
Sartre holds up “authenticity” as an ideal—but it’s a tricky one. Because the second you think you’ve “achieved” it, you’re slipping into essence again. Authenticity can’t be a destination—it has to be a constant process. A tension. And that means it’s fragile, temporary, and maybe even illusory. Every authentic act has to be remade again, again, and again.
5. Freedom Doesn’t Guarantee Coherence
Here’s one that keeps me up at night: even if I act authentically, even if I take full responsibility, there’s no promise that it will add up. No narrative arc. No tidy meaning at the end. Sartre’s freedom is radically open-ended. And that means your life might be honest, brave, and sincere—and still make no sense at all.
And maybe that’s what Sartre wanted us to face: not just the absence of God, but the absence of any narrative arc to bail us out. No resolution. No destiny. Just us, and the raw materials of choice, awareness, and nothingness.
Final Thoughts
So yeah—Sartre’s “condemned to be free” isn’t just about choosing your lunch or your career. It’s about the fact that there’s no one else to build the world for us, and no script to follow. We’re on the hook not just for our lives, but for the meaning of life itself—every time we act, speak, or even reflect.
And honestly, that’s both terrifying and beautiful.
Because if we’re condemned to be free, then we’re also gifted the absurd miracle of shaping what it means to live. Not once. But every day.