Robert Harris Existentialism

We live in a world where we are judged by our thoughts, behavior, and above all our actions. Every legal system is founded on the idea of laws and on our responsibility to choose to abide them. It’s this idea that as human beings we have full control of ourselves and of our actions. Human beings, as conscious beings, are held to a legal and moral standard and rightly so. As the branch of philosophy known as existentialism explains, all humans are “nothing”. There is no set or predetermined life path. A person has not only the ability but the obligation of creating and choosing their own life path. That is why in the case of Robert Harris, a person who individually chose his life path, he is fully responsible and guilty of his crimes. It is known that at the time of the crime, Robert Harris was alone with the two victims. Robert Harris had his weapon in hand and a mind ready to make a decision. One of the most important and fascinating elements of humans and existentialism is this ability to decide. You see, the simple concept of deciding implies that there are multiple choices. One might even think that there would be …show more content…
They would claim that by assessing the causes in Harris’ life they would have been able of foreseeing him commit murder. After all, he grew up in an awful environment and he was a very troubled child. He also would appear to have been following his “set life path” for quite some years. Harris began killing and mutilating animals at a young age, so what followed was simply one of the many results from the causes and effects that had been occurring in Harris’ life since it began. With determinism there seems to be this idea that everything that happens in life is caused by something that happened before it. It’s this endless and infinite sequence of explanations. However, this can be a quite dangerous way of