Clem, you mentioned Sartre’s unconditional freedom. This is often misunderstood as saying “you are free to do anything.” Obviously, freedom is not unlimited, and Sartre knows that. All freedom is constrained unless you’re God. For Sartre, that doesn’t mean we aren’t free in a different sense.
Really, what he’s getting at is that no amount of coercion, no amount of exterior control can take away your freedom. They might be able to delimit your options to A) hand over my wallet or B) get shot in the head. However unsavory the prospect is, this is still a choice, and not a few people in real life have chosen B. Sartre arrived at this idea, in part, from knowing of people in the French resistance who, captured by the Nazis, refused to comply with their captor’s demands even under torture, threats, and other extremes of coercion. This kind of freedom no one can take away from you. Maybe truth serum would make you talk, but that would be like comparing rape to consensual sex and seeing no difference. This kind of freedom does not require a predicate. It is not freedom to do a particular thing or other. Having all other options closed off, it may come down to the mere freedom to think–to refuse to have your spirit broken.
If you are not free to live in a commune, that does not mean, in Sartrean terms, that you are not free.
(Actually you really are free to do this, more free in capitalist countries than others, assuming your group owns the land it will be “communing” on. I wouldn’t try it in North Korea, but go to Israel and join a Kibbutz–it’s not so difficult. Property laws protect property owners, even if the owner is a communist, ironically. It might be morally bankrupt and immature for a group to rely on a system it condemns, but law and morality are different things.)
Now, I think this is all pretty much true, except with a few footnote.
Ok, based on this… what do you think of the following hypothesis:
Our freedom is made possible by our subjectivity, so I would say we can never be free to end or disolve our subjectivity, because that would be a logical paradox. We can think about it or imagine it. We can even jump out a window with the intention of suicide. Assuming we don’t survive the fall, our death would still not have been willed, because when it happens there’s no one there to will it. Our intention which we willed while we were alive cannot be considered death itself. Since we’ve never been dead, we don’t know what it is that we are intending.
It would be like walking backwards and stepping on a piece of dog poop I didn’t know was there (elevated example, I know). Though it would be the result of intentional action (walking backward), you still can’t say I intended the outcome.
Actually, I think I see the way out of this now, but I’ve already written too much!