Freedom requires choosing one’s own essence, not merely one’s acts

Evidence

But Leibniz falls into a necessitarianism completely opposed to the idea of freedom when at the outset he establishes the assertion of the substance of Adam as a premise which will bring in the act of Adam as one of its partial conclusions; that is, when he reduces the chronological order to being only a symbolic expression of the logical order. The result is that on the one hand, the act is strictly necessitated by the very essence of Adam; also the contingency which according to Leibniz makes freedom possible is found wholly contained within the essence of Adam. And this essence is not chosen by Adam himself but by God. Thus it is true that the act committed by Adam necessarily derives from Adam’s essence and that it thereby depends on Adam himself and on no other, which, to be sure, is one condition of freedom. But Adam’s essence is for Adam himself a given; Adam has not chosen it; he could not choose to be Adam. Consequently he does not support the responsibility for his being. Hence once he himself has been given, it is of little importance that one can attribute to him the relative responsibility for his act. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1126

Categorization

• XREF: Directly sets up the Sartrean contrast with Leibniz and foreshadows the being-in-itself/for-itself distinction; connects to Beauvoir’s critique of essence-given identity structures. — connects to: Nihilation is the permanent self-determination not to be the in-itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 350; Personal possessions and surroundings concretely express one’s fundamental self-choice.; Freedom chooses its being but cannot choose not to be — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1146 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Freedom chooses its being but cannot choose not to be #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1146
• Freedom is the for-itself’s permanent ability to nihilate its own being #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1075
• Freedom means choosing oneself within one’s world, not choosing the world itself. #qualifies (0.75)
• Freedom means autonomy of choice, not success in obtaining one’s ends. #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1154