Why did Jean-Paul Sartre believe that human beings are free to choose their lives?

Jean-Paul Sartre believed that human beings are fundamentally free because "existence precedes essence," meaning that humans do not possess a predetermined nature or purpose that dictates their actions. Instead, individuals are defined by their choices and the projects they undertake.1

For Sartre, this radical freedom is an inescapable condition of human consciousness, which he termed the "for-itself". Because there is no external blueprint for human life, individuals are entirely responsible for creating their own values and meaning through their decisions. Sartre argued that even when faced with significant limitations—such as one's past, environment, or social class—individuals must transcend these "facticities" through conscious action.231

Sartre viewed the attempt to deny this freedom as "bad faith," a form of dishonesty where individuals pretend they are objects acted upon by external forces rather than agents of their own lives. Ultimately, he described this freedom as a "damnation," as it imposes a heavy burden of total responsibility upon the individual, who is "not free not to be free".324