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Moral principles to guide existentialists

If existentialists are to have a moral principle; they could choose nothing better than Immanuel Kant's moral imperative-it is simple and honours the phenomenal criteria of a social dialectical reason; for moral systems are guidelines for interacting with other people, and the existentialist philosopher is in a sense a pure rationalist with that reserve of skepticism built in. Kant moral imperative is... "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law"-Kant.

Kant's moral imperative has that existentialist zing about it-it is self-standing (selbstandigkeit) and satisfies that criteria of unconditional freedom existentialists of the school of Sartre (about which I shall write more soon) require. The categorical imperative implicitly entails a free will choice to follow the categorical imperative. God is for some, the highest principle of Good. In such a modified ontological argument criterion the eternal and absolute actualization of all the good might mean the unlimited expression through all eternity of free will and freedom in all of its creative potential and realization. All possible Universes, all possible sentient beings-all such would have actuality; and all sentient beings should have free will even of an existential character...they should follow the categorical imperative in an effort to avoid evil and to actualize the good.

A consistent principle for actualizing free will in the highest possible way, within human ability, would be to support absolute free will while avoiding the evil of adversely impacting the free will of any other. Such a difficult task might be discovered within the golden rule and the categorical imperative.

Existentialists may be people that follow the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre's philosophical method. Sartre denied, for-himself, that he was an existentialist so the moral principles that should guide followers of the existentialist numero uno who disavowed existentialism is less the plain. Lets take the issue seriously though and consider a couple of points on the question of selecting a moral tool-kit of principles to follow or carry along with one through life.

Moral principles are perhaps ossified social folkways that work and are sculpted into principle status. Since 'existentialists' regard everything in the first-person as a subjective intellectual or cognitive experience perhaps with nothing 'outside' having more reality or confirm-able reality other than as what


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Moral principles to guide existentialists

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    by John Devera

    To understand the moral principles that should guide existentialists, then one must understand what an existentialist is.

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    by Gary C. Gibson

    If existentialists are to have a moral principle; they could choose nothing better than Immanuel Kant's moral imperative-it

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    by M. Sparga

    Poor existentialists. They have frequently been misunderstood and characterized as pessimists who view a world of isolation

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    by Royce Radcliffe

    This is a topic that can be taken a number of ways, but I am of the opinion that there is only one moral compass appropriate

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    by Jonathan Caro

    Existentialism is the name given to a school of philosophical thought with roots in the Mid-Nineteenth century but which

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Moral principles to guide existentialists

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