Existentialism Is a Humanism

A public lecture Sartre gave in Paris in October 1945, published in 1946, when existentialism had become both a fashion and a target. He answers Communist critics, who called it a philosophy of despair and isolation, and Catholic critics, who called it immoral. His central claim is that for human beings existence precedes essence: unlike a paper-knife, made to a design for a purpose, we first exist and then define ourselves by what we do. With no God and no fixed human nature, we are 'condemned to be free'. Sartre explains anguish, since in choosing for myself I choose an image of humanity; abandonment, since no rule decides for us, shown by a young man torn between caring for his mother and joining the Free French; and despair, acting without guarantees. He ends by calling existentialism a humanism of action and responsibility. Sartre later had reservations about the lecture's popular simplifications.

It is the shortest and clearest statement of Sartre's existentialism, and a good first test of whether you think we create our own values.