Sartre considers that “If values are vague and if they are always too broad in scope to apply to the

specific and concrete case under consideration, we have no choice but to rely on our instincts.”

Many look for moral advice - and more often than not, this moral advice comes from a

specific doctrine. However, Sarte goes against the idea that doctrines should

provide any sort of answer with regards to morality. To illustrate this idea,

he gives the example of one of his students coming to him for help with a moral dilemma.

The student’s brother was killed by German forces during the second world war in 1940.

The student himself lived with his mother, whose husband - his father - had left them.

After being left by her lover and learning of the death of her son,

the woman was inconsolable. Her only comfort in life was her son - the student. The student got

the choice of joining the Free French Forces and going to England, where he would get the chance

to fight and avenge his brother's death. Doing so, however, would include having

to leave his mother behind and being unable to comfort her or help her with her life.

His absence, and perhaps his death, might become too much for her to handle,

while his staying behind would guarantee benefit to her life. Him leaving with the French Forces

could not guarantee any benefit to the war effort since he might be assigned a pointless position,

get captured or even be killed. Sartre describes his two options as two different moralities:

one motivated by individual sympathy, the other of a larger scope with

larger ambitions. One guaranteed to succeed, the other more ambiguous.

When asked what the student should choose, all Sartre could do was remind him of his

own freedom and responsibility. ‘It is your choice to make.’ This is because any doctrine

or universal rule is too abstract to apply to specific, individual cases such as these.

For any choice it could be argued that it follows or breaks a certain moral rule,

depending on what you focus on. Doctrines, in short, are useless. Only the student can decide.

People like to look at doctrines for moral advice. They want to be taught

what to do and how to make moral choices, for it would make life easier and absolve

them from making hard choices that they’d then have to justify all by themselves.

We also tend to ask others what the ‘right’ or ‘best’ thing to do would be. Sometimes,

people feel compelled to blindly follow others without following their own gut feeling,

mis-recognizing their own freedom and wrongly denying personal responsibility.

To avoid fooling yourself in such a way, Sartre stresses that an individual must always make the

choice by choosing what path compels them the most. To take one last look at the student and

his dilemma: in the end, the student realized that only he could decide what instinctively

feels the best to him. Of course, asking for advice is helpful in the sense that it offers

inspiration or previously unconsidered options. However, never let yourself be fooled that you can

give up your choice to anyone or anything else. Make the choices that are most authentic to you.