Chapter 4: Choosing When There Is No Right Answer

The Promotion and the Mother

Yusra is thirty-nine and has worked as a nurse on a children's ward for twelve years. She loves her work. Last week, her manager offered her a promotion: she could lead the ward's night team. It would mean more responsibility, more pay and the chance to shape how the ward cares for children through the long hours of the night. It is exactly the kind of role she has hoped for.

But there is a difficulty. Yusra's mother, who lives with her, has been unwell for a year. She is frail and often frightened at night, and she sleeps better knowing that her daughter is in the next room. If Yusra takes the night role, her mother will be alone for many nights each week, or Yusra will have to arrange and pay for someone to stay with her, someone her mother does not know.

Yusra has thought about it for days. She has asked her friends, who are divided. Some say she has sacrificed enough and deserves the promotion. Others say her mother needs her now and the career can wait. She has asked her brother, who lives far away and says she should do what she thinks is right. She has read articles about caring for elderly parents and articles about women's careers. None of it settles the question.

The difficulty is not that one option is good and the other bad. Both are good. Both reflect things Yusra deeply values: her care for her mother and her calling as a nurse. Whatever she chooses, she will be honouring one value and giving something up from the other. There is no rule that tells her which value should win. She will have to decide herself. This chapter is about this kind of choice, and about what Sartre said when a young man came to him with a similar problem more than eighty years ago.

The Student's Dilemma

In his lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism, which we met in the second chapter, Sartre told the story of one of his former students who came to him during the Second World War, at a time when Sartre's country was occupied by a foreign army. The student was facing a painful choice, and he wanted Sartre's advice.

In my own retelling of Sartre's account: The young man's older brother had been killed in the fighting. His father had quarrelled with his mother and leaned toward cooperating with the occupiers. His mother lived alone with him, grieving the loss of her elder son and deeply hurt by her husband, and the young man was her only comfort. At the same time, he felt a strong desire to leave the country and join the forces fighting against the occupation, partly to avenge his brother and partly because he believed in the cause.

He saw his choice clearly. If he stayed, he would be helping one particular person, his mother, in a concrete and certain way. His presence made a real difference to her life. If he left, he would be joining a vast effort whose outcome was uncertain, in which his own contribution might be small or might come to nothing. And leaving might plunge his mother into despair. On the other hand, staying meant turning away from a cause he believed in, at a moment of great historical importance.

Both choices, then, were tied to things he valued: his love and duty toward his mother, and his commitment to a larger struggle for freedom. He could not do both. And he came to Sartre hoping that philosophy could tell him which was right.

Sartre did not tell us what the young man finally decided, and that silence is part of the point. The story is not a puzzle with a solution hidden at the end. It is an example of a kind of situation that every human being may face: a moment when the most important things in our lives pull us in different directions, and when we must act without being able to prove that we are right. Many readers have found it helpful precisely because it does not end with an answer.

Why No Rule Could Decide

Sartre's answer, as he reported it in the lecture, was that no ethical rule could settle the young man's choice. He explained why by looking at the kinds of rules people usually turn to.

Some moral teachings tell us to love our neighbour and to act with charity. But who is the neighbour here, Sartre asked: the mother, or the people suffering under occupation? Charity could point either way. Other moral theories tell us to treat people as ends in themselves, never merely as means. But if the young man stayed, he would treat his mother as an end while risking treating those who were fighting as mere means; if he left, he would honour the fighters as ends while risking using his mother as a means to the cause. Again, the rule did not decide.

The young man had also thought of relying on his feelings. He would do whatever he felt most strongly. If he loved his mother enough to stay, he would stay. But Sartre pointed out a difficulty: how do we know how strong a feeling is, except by what we do? The strength of his love for his mother would only be shown by whether he stayed with her. In a sense, his feeling would be created and proved by his action, rather than the other way around. So feelings could not settle the question in advance either.

The point was not that rules and feelings are useless. They help us in countless everyday situations. The point was that, in some situations, they run out. They are too general to tell us what to do in this particular case, or they point in more than one direction at once. When that happens, there is no hidden right answer waiting to be found. We must decide.

Choosing an Adviser Is Already a Choice

Sartre made another observation that is very useful in everyday life. The young man had come to him for advice. But why had he come to Sartre, rather than to someone else?

Sartre pointed out that, in choosing an adviser, we often already have a sense of what kind of advice we will receive. If the young man had wanted to be told to stay with his mother, he might have gone to someone who valued family above all. If he had wanted to be told to leave, he might have gone to someone known for supporting the struggle. By choosing whom to ask, he was already, in part, choosing his answer. And by coming to Sartre, he must have known the kind of answer Sartre would give.

And what was that answer? According to his own account, Sartre's reply was short. In substance, he told the young man that no ready-made code of conduct could settle this case for him, and that the answer would have to be his own creation, made in the very act of deciding. Nobody else could make the decision, and in making it, he would define what his values really were.

This observation is worth remembering when we face hard choices. Asking for advice is wise. Other people can see things we miss and help us think more clearly. But it can help to notice whom we ask and why. Are we looking for information and perspective, or are we looking for someone to make the decision for us, or to confirm what we have already half decided? Being honest about this is part of owning our choice.

Yusra, for example, might notice that she asked one friend, who always puts career first, and another, who always puts family first, as if hoping that one of them would win the argument for her. The existentialist insight is that neither of them can. The decision remains hers.

Values Are Made in the Choosing

Sartre's own word for this kind of creation was "invent", and it is striking. What could it mean to invent an answer to a moral question? It does not mean making something up carelessly or arbitrarily. It means that, in situations where no rule decides, our choice itself creates the meaning of our values.

Think about it this way. Before the young man chose, the question "Which matters more to you, your mother or the cause?" had no answer. Both mattered. By choosing, he would give it an answer. If he stayed, he would become someone for whom, in this situation, his mother's need came first. If he left, he would become someone for whom the larger cause came first. The choice would not discover a fact about him that was already there. It would make him into a certain kind of person.

This is connected with the idea from the second chapter, that existence comes before essence. We do not have a fixed set of values written inside us, waiting to be read. We make our values through our choices, especially in hard cases. This is why such choices feel so weighty. They are not just about what to do. They are about who to become.

This view also brings a kind of dignity to hard choices. When we choose between two goods, we are not failing to find the right answer because we are not clever enough. We are doing something only a free being can do: shaping our own values through action. Whatever we choose, if we choose honestly and take responsibility, we are living as the authors of our lives.

It also brings a certain humility. If our choice creates our values in this case, then we should be cautious about judging others who chose differently in similar situations. Another person, facing the same conflict, might reasonably choose the other path and become a different kind of person. Neither is simply right or wrong. Both are making themselves.

Living With the Road Not Taken

One of the hardest parts of choosing between two goods is that we lose something whatever we choose. If Yusra takes the promotion, she loses some of the time and closeness with her mother in her final years. If she declines it, she loses an opportunity that may not come again, and part of the professional life she wanted. There is no option without loss.

It is natural to feel sadness or even grief for the path not taken. The existentialists did not ask us to pretend that this loss does not exist. On the contrary, recognizing it honestly is part of choosing well. A person who chooses one good and pretends they have lost nothing may be deceiving themselves.

At the same time, it helps to remember that the lost path was never certain. We often imagine the road not taken as smoother and brighter than it would have been. The promotion might have brought exhaustion and conflict as well as satisfaction. The time with her mother might have brought strain as well as closeness. We compare our real path, with all its difficulties, with an imagined path that exists only in our minds. That comparison is rarely fair.

Another helpful thought is that many choices are not permanent. Yusra might decline the promotion now and seek a similar one later, when her situation changes. Or she might accept it and find ways to stay close to her mother, by spending her free days with her and making other arrangements. The young man in Sartre's story faced a very final choice in a time of war. Most of our choices, thankfully, leave more room for adjustment.

It can also help to think about how you will honour the value you did not choose. If Yusra declines the promotion, she might still find ways to grow as a nurse, perhaps by mentoring younger colleagues or taking a short course. If she accepts it, she might protect certain evenings with her mother as fixed and precious. Choosing one good does not have to mean abandoning the other completely. Often, a hard choice decides which value comes first for now, while leaving room to care for the other in smaller ways.

Not Every Choice Is Like This

It is important not to stretch this idea too far. Not every difficult choice is a choice between two goods with no right answer. Many choices do have better and worse answers, and information, reasoning and advice can help us find them.

If you are choosing between two flats, one of which is cheaper, closer to work and in better repair, there may simply be a better option. If you are choosing whether to see a doctor about a worrying symptom, there is a sensible answer. If you are deciding whether to keep a promise or break it for a small convenience, most moral traditions would agree on what to do. In these cases, the existentialist point about invention does not mean that every answer is equally good.

The special situation Sartre described arises when two deep values, each truly important, conflict, and when the situation is unique enough that no general rule settles it. These situations are less common than everyday choices, but they are often the most important choices of our lives: about caring for family, about work and calling, about loyalty and honesty, about where to live and whom to love.

Recognizing which kind of choice we face can itself be helpful. If a choice has a better answer that we can find by thinking and gathering information, we should do that. If, after honest thought, we find that two goods are genuinely in conflict and nothing settles it, then we can stop searching for a hidden right answer and accept that we must choose.

There is also a difference between choices that affect only ourselves and choices that affect others deeply. When our choice will shape someone else's life, as Yusra's will shape her mother's, it is right to include that person in the conversation as far as possible. Yusra's mother may have her own wishes. She might say, "Take the job. I will manage." Or she might say, "Please stay." Her words do not make the choice for Yusra, but they are part of the situation, and listening to them is part of choosing responsibly.

Four Lives, Two Goods

Jamal is twenty-seven and has been offered a permanent job as an accountant, with good pay and security. He has also been invited to join a small theatre company as a set designer, an uncertain, poorly paid role that would let him do the creative work he loves. He spends weeks trying to calculate which is better, but the two options are too different to compare. In the end, he realizes that no calculation will decide it. He chooses the theatre company for two years, with a plan to save carefully and to reconsider. He says: "I am choosing to be someone who tried. If it fails, I will choose again."

Agnieszka is fifty and has two brothers. Their father, who has dementia, can no longer live alone. One brother wants to move him into a care home. The other wants him to live with one of them. Agnieszka sees good reasons for both, and both involve loss. The family argues for months. Eventually, they sit down together and agree that there is no perfect answer, and that whatever they choose, they will choose it together and support each other. They decide on a care home near Agnieszka's house, so that she can visit every day. It is painful, but the decision feels like theirs, made knowingly and together.

Diego is seventeen and plays in his school's football team. The final of a regional tournament falls on the same day as his best friend's sixteenth birthday party, which his friend has been planning for months. Diego's teammates are counting on him. His friend has asked him especially to come. He cannot do both. He talks to both his coach and his friend, honestly explaining the conflict. He decides to play in the final and then go to the party late, after apologizing to his friend in advance. His friend is disappointed but understands. Diego learns that, even at seventeen, some choices require him to decide what kind of person he wants to be.

Yusra, from the beginning of this chapter, finally stops asking for advice and sits down alone with a notebook. She writes about what each option would mean for her and for her mother. She realizes that her mother's illness is likely to get worse, and that this time with her will not come again. She also realizes that her career, while important, will still be there. She declines the night role, explaining her reasons to her manager, who says she will remember her for future roles. Yusra feels sad about what she has given up. But she also feels clear. She has chosen what kind of daughter and what kind of nurse she wants to be at this point in her life.

Jamal, Agnieszka, Diego and Yusra each faced a choice between two goods. None of them found a hidden right answer, because there was none to find. Each of them chose, honestly and with awareness of what they were giving up, and in choosing, they shaped their own values.

Practical Steps

First, ask what kind of choice it is. Is there a better answer that information and reasoning can help you find, or are two deep values truly in conflict? Do the work of thinking first, but recognize when thinking has run out.

Second, name the values on each side. Write down what each option honours and what it gives up. Being clear about the values helps you see what is really at stake.

Third, notice whom you ask for advice. Seek perspective from people who care about you, but notice whether you are looking for someone to decide for you. In the end, the choice is yours.

Fourth, accept that there will be loss. Whatever you choose, something will be given up. Let yourself feel that loss honestly, without pretending it does not exist.

Fifth, choose and own it. When you have thought enough, make the choice. Tell yourself and others: "I have chosen this, for these reasons." Owning the choice makes it yours.

Sixth, leave room for adjustment. Remember that many choices can be revisited as situations change. Choosing now does not always mean choosing forever.

A Short Exercise: Two Goods on One Page

This exercise takes about thirty minutes. It is for a choice in which two things you value seem to conflict.

Take a page and draw a line down the middle. At the top of the left side, write the first option. At the top of the right side, write the second. Under each, write the values that this option honours: for example, "care for my mother", "loyalty", "creativity", "security", "honesty". Then, below that, write what this option would give up.

Next, for each option, write a short paragraph from the point of view of yourself ten years from now, looking back on having made this choice. What would that future self be grateful for? What might they regret? Try to be honest rather than hopeful or fearful.

Then ask yourself: if I could only explain my choice in one sentence to someone I deeply respect, what would that sentence be for each option? Write both sentences. Notice which one feels more like you, or more like the person you want to become.

Finally, write: "I choose... because..." If you are not ready to choose, write: "I am not ready to choose yet, because..." and set a date when you will return to this page. Either way, you have looked at the choice directly and taken a step toward owning it.

You might also share this page with someone you trust, not to ask them to decide for you, but to help you see your own thinking more clearly.

Questions People Often Ask

"If my choice creates my values, does that mean any choice is as good as any other?" No. Sartre's point applies to situations where genuine values conflict and no rule decides. It does not mean that cruelty, dishonesty or selfishness are as good as kindness, honesty and care. Even within a hard choice, there are better and worse ways of choosing: honestly or deceptively, with care for those affected or carelessly, owning the choice or blaming others. Sartre also believed that our choices carry responsibility for others, an idea that de Beauvoir developed and that we will explore later.

"What if I choose and then feel I made the wrong decision?" This is common, especially in hard choices. Remember that you chose without knowing the future, and that the path not taken might not have been better. If new information or circumstances arise, you may be able to adjust. If not, you can learn from the experience and carry it with honesty. The existentialists believed that taking responsibility for our choices, including the ones we regret, is part of living authentically.

"Should I trust my gut feeling in these choices?" Your feelings carry important information about what you value, and they deserve attention. But Sartre's point was that feelings alone may not settle a hard choice, because their strength is often shown only in what we do. It can help to listen to your feelings, think carefully, talk with others and then choose, knowing that your choice will shape your feelings as much as your feelings shape your choice.

Chapter Summary

Some of life's hardest choices are between two goods, each tied to deep values, when no rule settles the question. In Existentialism Is a Humanism, Sartre told of a student during the war who had to choose between staying with his grieving mother and leaving to join the fight against the occupation. Sartre argued that no moral rule and no feeling could decide in advance, and that even choosing an adviser was already partly choosing the answer.

His reply was that no ready-made rule could decide for the student, who would have to create his own answer by choosing. In such cases, our choices create our values and shape who we become. Every such choice involves loss, which should be recognized honestly, though the road not taken is often imagined as better than it would have been. Not every choice is like this; many have better answers that thinking can find.

In the next chapter, we look at the ways we hide from our freedom by pretending that we have no choice, which Sartre called bad faith.