by Jonathan Caro

Created on: March 26, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

Existentialism is the name given to a school of philosophical thought with roots in the Mid-Nineteenth century but which blossomed in the early Twentieth. While some of the major writers associated with this school were Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Martin Heidegger, it can be argued that the earlier philosophers Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, while not a part of the school, were its true founders.

Existentialism, grounded as it is in personal narrative and definition, is an exemplar of what is now called "Continental" philosophy. This type of philosophy, prevalent in Europe and contrasted with "Analytical" philosophy prevalent in the United States and England, can roughly be characterized as addressing the question of man's place in the universe and the meaning of his existence. In a very real sense, Continental philosophers, Existentialists among them, wrestled with the question of the "meaning of life."

This background helps to frame the question of moral principles to guide Existentialists by helping to fix in mind what the nature of Existentialism is. As a school of philosophical inquiry, it joins together the devout Christian theological philosopher Kierkegaard with the atheistic Nietzsche, who first penned the phrase "God is dead." It bears careful consideration as to what moral framework could unite these naturally antagonistic perspectives.

If there is a guiding tenet of Existentialism, it is the thesis that the individual creates the value which is to be found in his existence. From the absolute responsibility inherent in Sartre's claim that man is "condemned to be free"; to the project of Nietzsche's bermensch in "revaluating all values"; to Kierkegaard's observation that "purity of heart is to will one thing"; the Existentialists universally saw that value was invested by the individual to the extent that he took responsibility for, and actively sought to create, what was meaningful in his life.

To put this another way, the Existentialists claimed that a person's life is meaningful only to the extent that he realized that his actions created that meaning for him, and to the extent that he sought, through his personal investment in his projects, to bring something about that demonstrated his meaning. Yet it is a human life that is lived, so the best lives must exemplify that humanity. Thus for Nietzsche, it was the uniquely human act of creating value itself; for Sartre, it was living authentically; for Kierkegaard, it was the absolute

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