Freedom is the foundational condition of all action

Evidence

This is what Hegel caught sight of when he wrote that “the mind is the negative,” although he seems not to have remembered this when he came to presenting his own theory of action and of freedom. In fact as soon as one attributes to consciousness this negative power with respect to the world and itself, as soon as the nihilation forms an integral part of the positing of an end, we must recognize that the indispensable and fundamental condition of all action is the freedom of the acting being. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1069

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘freedom as condition of action’ thesis is the systematic backdrop to Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity. — connects to: Nothing justifies the values a free being adopts since freedom grounds all values — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 250; A more profound freedom than will underlies all volitional acts; Freedom is the for-itself’s permanent ability to nihilate its own being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1075 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Freedom is the for-itself’s permanent ability to nihilate its own being #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1075
• Authority presupposes freedom in those subjected to it #exemplifies (0.82) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 4948
• Freedom is synonymous with the for-itself’s lack of being #expands (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1328
• Freedom precedes essence and is indistinguishable from being human #expands (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 226
• Individual freedom is achieved only through the freedom of others #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 144
• Freedom exists only as engaged, self-choosing action, never as undetermined potential #qualifies (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1145
• Others’ freedom is the condition of, not a limit on, my own freedom #complicates (0.73) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 91
• Freedom has concrete content only when engaged in the world #qualifies (0.72)
• Others constitute the situation that gives individual freedom its concrete content #complicates (0.70) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 453