Comparing Kant And Jean-Paul Sartre Ethical Theories

Jean-Paul Sartre take on existentialism is center on the idea that what you choose to do in life will have consequences be it good or bad. If someone were to ask me to describe existentialism, I would say that no one has the book on how to decide on what to do in life, it is you who does. Humans use free will to make their life have meaning. At first glance, this theory seems very bleak and black and white. When viewing it at a basic level it does, but under the hood of the theory will show why it seems so much more. At a base, existentialism believes that humans come first, then their essence. Essence is defined here as the function of that human. In religious terms, God first gives essence to humans, create humans, and then humans act on
One similarity can be seen without the need of a moral example is that both theories believe that humans make their own decisions in life and morals. Kant believes that humans know what morality is instead of a God, and Sartre believes that humans choose their own functions that in time creates moral values. To further draw similarities and differences, I will be using Lawrence Kohlberg’s Heinz’s dilemma. The dilemma tells of a woman nearing death, and that there was only one rare drug that a druggist carry that might save her life. Unfortunately, the same druggist who has the drug was the one who discovers it, and he is charging ten time the rate it takes to produce it. The husband of the dying, Heinz, was only able to raise $1,000 dollars, half the cost of the rare drug. The druggist would not accept the money and later payments, and this lead for Heinz to steal the drug since he got desperate. The question is that should Heinz should have done what he did? In Kant’s theory, at first the theory would agree of Heinz stealing the drug because it was the right thing to do to save his wife. His good will made him do this action. Although, his action would fall under a fallacy if stealing was placed into a universal law, which is condemned. The theory would also state that Heinz used the druggist to a means to an end, which is breaking into his private property to reach his own end and make his action wrong. However, when using Sartre’s theory, Heinz’s action is completely justified. He chose to do something about his situation. If he had not stolen the drug, his wife would have died. He tried to offer money and later payments, which did not yield the drug he needed. If he would have just left it at that, the wife would have died because the husband did not choose another path in life that will lead to the drug. He did not trust the druggist to