uced the individual further into the background. The existentialists looked at this set of circumstances and began to argue that the individual's significance in the world should be re-established. In order to do this, they focused on ways to re-humanize the human being, and emphasized subjectivity in human life and the individual's ethical concerns on a personal basis. Another important factor in the coming of existentialism was the breakdown of religion as an authoritative force in human life. This factor caused philosophy to focus not on God and the afterlife, but on individual human beings and their life on earth. The questions then became, Where do we find meaning in life, and who is responsible for finding that meaning?
It is utterly false to say that existentialists simply do what they want to do in a "meaningless" and "godless" universe without concern for the ethical significance and consequences of their actions, or without concern for relationship or community. To the contrary, ethics is at the heart of existentialism. In fact, as states earlier, Sartre and others argue that the existentialist must act with a heightened ethical consciousness, must act, in fact, as if he were the representative of all humankind in his actions, asking himself what the results would be if every human being behaves as he does and takes the actions he does. The existentialist does not reject reason as a basis for his actions, but rather tries to keep reason as the basis for such actions. The difference between existentialism and earlier, more abstract and theoretical and objective philosophies, is that existentialism elevates the reason of the individual rather than the reason of any external authority or institution. This sets up a new freedom for the individual, but it also sets up a tremendous ethical burden. The individual must decide for himself what the meaning of life is, keeping in mind the potential universality of his actions. The re...