| Title | : | The Ethics of Ambiguity |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 080650160X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780806501604 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 162 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1947 |
The Ethics of Ambiguity Reviews
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Existentialism was, for a sweet minute, the new way to think about self and the world in the 20th century; but few—so very precious few—understood anything about it. Christians were probably the primary reason it bombed among traditionalists, but its novel language, complex ideas, and deep avowal of the value of personal choice were strong determinants of its unrecognized benefits. So what is it exactly that Existentialism offers? Simone de Beauvoir does a wonderful job drawing out the practical significance of existentialist ideas, such as:
1. An affirmation and value of one’s own self as the center of the universe
2. Confidence in one’s own powers to shape the world
3. A confidence in the importance and necessity of others and their happiness
4. A call to action and responsibility within the context of a limited understanding
5. A framework to understand the world in a more practical way which exposes and utilizes the subject-object tension consistently evident in our experience.
She offered answers for postmodernism and post-traditionalism and post-“what the heck do I do now that I realize I have to decide for myself?”-ism. Besides defining a new method for ethics, she also took on crass communists and gross capitalists and staunchly defended a philosophy of authentic, vulnerable, courageous living against a petrified, simplistic code of morals that for centuries has enabled instant action but not an understanding of the nature or goals of one’s existence. It will always be difficult to defend a new idea against deeply ingrained and widely accepted customs, but then again, there’s air conditioning. Old ways of thinking, no matter how convenient, are like Missouri summer weather, while the ethics of existentialist ambiguity is like air conditioning. Who wants to live in Misery without air conditioning? You sir? Be my guest, but I’m thinking air conditioning will ultimately win the day.
This book is especially for anyone wondering what the blank they should do with the ideas of Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialism. Many summarize Sartre’s philosophy by his words, “Man is a useless passion”, and though some women may agree (ha!), I think mostly his words are being wrenched out of context. In Being And Nothingness Sartre laid out that humanity is a lack in that every existing person has a consciousness which has, in effect, stepped away from the world of things (thus a lack) to be able to comprehend the world of things. In other words, the subject-object relationship is fundamental and absolute, for if all were object there would be no consciousness of objects at all. And because this subject-object disparity is the foundation of consciousness, there is no going back. The subject strives to expand in the universe, to “disclose its being” and define its dimensions. Its goal is to continue to become more without becoming all, because in becoming all it would be object (in that there would be no object besides itself), and it would cease to exist, theoretically, as conscious subject. Beauvoir sums it up nicely, “If I were really everything there would be nothing beside me; the world would be empty. There would be nothing to possess, and I myself would be nothing.” In other words, we strive to remain conscious as a limited, transcendent being-away-from-objects, but we also strive to assimilate things we are becoming conscious of. This is the paradox and “useless passion” that Sartre spoke so frankly about, but I would think the words “endless passion” would better characterize the tension.
Beauvoir, Sartre’s compatriot in country and mind, takes up existentialism where Sartre left off, and tackles how one should live with these new ideas. She believes with Sartre that our existence is concerned with disclosing and expanding our being, but she is chiefly concerned with how to do so healthily and happily for the best results. In the wake of WWII and communist turmoil, France, and the rest of the world, someone needed to point the way with a new species of ethics that wouldn’t land us all in the awful mess and global suffering the world at that time found itself in.
So Beauvoir did what Sartre was never able, or interested enough, to do. She recognized with him that the ethical character of existentialism was ambiguity—no external right or wrongs that absolved individuals from their essential responsibility to decide for themselves and all the risk that entails, and that this ambiguity would become a perceived stumbling block for the uninitiated; but she also believed that something might be done to help people embrace their freedom and love their life, and she hoped to provide ideological support to assist people in making more rewarding decisions in the game of life. “The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.”
She begins by laying out what human beings want: freedom over and above the world of objects, disclosing one’s being in that world, and a future open with possibilities to continue to expand and define one’s presence in that world. “My freedom must not seek to trap being, but to disclose it. The disclosure is the transition from [unconscious] being to [conscious] existence.” The autonomy of the human being must always float above the objective world, never equating itself with a thing or finding itself on a crash course collision with objectification and the ‘stillness’ of absolute and unconscious being. This is why “freedom is not to be engulfed in any goal; neither is it to dissipate itself vainly without aiming at a goal.” The idea of an open future and a continually retreating, but partly-realizable goal, is what everyone wants in balance, and oppression occurs when one is prevented by another from feeling fulfilled in balanced and meaningful pursuit.
Beauvoir lists 6 ways in which a flight from freedom becomes manifest in a person's life: the child, the sub-man, the serious man, the nihilist, the adventurer, and the passionate man (see link at the bottom of this review for the full review including discussion of the types). The problem with all of these various ways to escape oneself and one’s responsibility is that they become not only destructive to self, but destructive to others. In other words, the Sub-man and the Passionate person both threaten me because they have assigned me a value of being just another object in their world in which they are not invested. The failure to see others as critical components of one’s own consciousness leads to a reduction of others’ worth in a subordinate role. This idea of interdependence of the frameworks for consciousness is what Sartre referred to as “intersubjectivity” in his work, Existentialism Is a Humanism, and it underpins all of Beauvoir’s philosophy of the human concern for one another. The existentialists fought hard to make people see that we are all woven into a tapestry of consciousness which comes into being together and cannot function rightly without each other. “The freedom of one man almost always concerns that of other individuals… his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others.” In the repeated emphasis of human solidarity one can clearly understand how French existentialism was birthed in crisis amid the political and communistic oppression of the mid-20th century, not to mention the Nazi occupation.
So, now that we know how NOT to act, how DO we act? Essentially Beauvoir heads towards a “greatest good for the greatest number” form of rationale, and it stands up pretty well. She offers well thought-out and cogent responses to humanitarian quandaries like using force against others, sacrificing a few that more may live, sacrificing many so that one with a more hopeful future can live, and using means in the light of ends while making sure that the ends are present in-part with the means.
However, while it seems that Beauvoir is presenting a hard-and-fast ethic—being concerned for others—the whole point of human existence is realizing our fundamental freedom from external influence that would condition or determine human beings’ actions or choices, and it is this which introduces ambiguity as the freedom from the restraint of rules, traditions, dogma or imperatives of any kind. There is no external authority to be blamed or praised for an individual’s unique and unqualified personal choice, not even the authority of thinkers like Beauvoir. My choice is my own, and no one else’s. It is mine alone, and will always be so. Therefore, the other can only suggest tools that I can use to help me achieve more success with my actions, and even then, I have to assess those tools and experiment with them at my own risk. I am liable only for myself to myself. This is why Beauvoir proposes personally utilized ‘methods’ and not universal absolutes, even when it comes to things like human oppression and murder. “Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art. One can merely propose methods.”
Probably the most uncomfortable part of existentialism, and of this work in particular, is the deflating assertion that we must accept risks in ethics as in the rest of life without having complete information, being always in a state of partial doubt; and this, says the author, is the most fundamental trait of human existence.
“The movement of the mind, whether it be called thought or will, always starts up in the darkness…we must [at bottom] maneuver in a state of doubt… Man always has to decide by himself in the darkness, [and] he must want beyond what he knows.”
For many, this will not sound consoling, but for those who have already begun to recognize that this is indeed our situation, it is freeing to be able to admit it, and maybe to start loving it for what it is. For one like myself who has come to the realization that they may not have been one hundred percent certain of anything at any point in their life, it comes as an affirmation to know that all the good that could ever be achieved can only be achieved, and has only ever been achieved, by courage and love with all of their concomitant dangers. That feels pretty good to know.
If ethics are not absolutes but only proposed methods, what about the people who may not adopt the methods which I believe ultimately benefit humankind, and instead employ methods which produce only devastation? This, my dear, is what war is for. “There are cases where a man positively wants evil, that is, the enslavement of other men, and he must then be fought.” I assume Beauvoir believes that her method-of-proposing-helpful-methods must be somewhat effective in producing authentic living and honest thinking which naturally engender a human concern for one another; but it’s easy to see that she isn’t opposed to a very physical approach to attitude adjustments when all else fails. And this would still fit within her philosophy of being concerned for others, even those fought against, because another’s unwarranted violence against their own self or another person “is an attempt of the individual against his own freedom”; and so violence against violence can be justified, and only justified, if the fight is against a person, for a person, and for others’ ultimate welfare. “The tyranny practiced against an invalid can be justified only by his getting better.”
Some may ask, “How dare you? How dare you, Simone de Beauvoir, though your name is like a honeyed song rolling off the tongue? If you are so concerned with the Other, what right have you to hurt another human being?” She would answer (and she did), “… love authorizes severities which are not granted to indifference.”
Now THAT’S a woman.
**If your eyes aren't bleeding yet and you still want more, see the full review at
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**Like this review? Clicking ‘like’ lets me know someone’s reading! For more reviews, visit my blog! -
‘To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision.’
Faced with an absence of moral absolutes, one must ask what a code of ethics would look like in a subjective existence. In The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir (best known for her cornerstone work,
The Second Sex, which kickstarted second-wave feminism) address such questions of ethics from a perspective of existentialist thought she was developing with friend and contemporary
Jean-Paul Sartre. Having stated in a lecture that Sartre’s
Being and Nothingness was inadequate to base an entire ethical system, Simone de Beauvoir approached existential ethics through the basis of human freedom, which she declared the foundation of morality instead of a binary between good and bad. Above all, she argues one must ‘act to defend and develop the moral freedom of oneself and others.’ Across the three sections of The Ethics of Ambiguity, Beauvoir takes a philosophical deep dive into the ambiguity of existence, examining ethical attitudes and ‘ways of being’ people may take in relation to our own freedoms as well as the freedoms of others, arguing that even without a fixed moral absolutism, existentialism provides a path of virtuous and praiseworthy living all the same.
'Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.'
The Ethics of Ambiguity is a highly readable book, and at just under 200pgs it is one that never feels like biting off more than one can chew despite it being a heady and nuanced work worth giving plenty of space to digest. It is a delicious meal of thought, however, and I’ve always found the ways Beauvoir relates her own thinking with the writings of other philosophers to be rather inviting, giving the reader enough context to follow along even if they are unfamiliar with the other’s work. This book offers some excellent looks at her ideas set against the big picture of other ethical systems as well as in context with other existentialist ideas, often writing in defense against criticisms against existentialism for being too bleak or not offering any distinction between right and wrong. Beauvoir asserting that morality is something people develop through life in relation to the current contexts of life instead of a fixed and universal code. She cites and rebuts
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s famous line from the
The Brothers Karamazov ‘if God is dead, everything is permitted, ’ as she posits that whole humans are ontologically free, life is not a nihilistic free-for-all under existentialism and she also develops criteria that can determine if actions are moral or not.
‘[L]et us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.’
A tenant of existentialist thought is that ‘existence precedes essence,’ namely that objects or ideas exist before value is assigned to them and that, as Sartre argues, life has no meaning until we assign a meaning or essence to it. In this way, Beauvoir argues against any idea of absolute goodness, stating ‘there exists no absolute value’ and that instead value is developed from our choices. So while morality is subjective it is still meaningful because all meaning is subjective. In this way, Beauvoir follows Sartre’s ideas against ‘bad-faith’ living, and that we must desire to always be ‘willing ourselves free’ in authenticity of the self instead of having our value defined by others.
So what is ambiguity? We need to break this down a bit. Beauvoir draws heavily on Sartre’s works in
Being and Nothingness on the distinction of anything being ‘in-itself’ or ‘for-itself’ (roughly: using
Martin Heidegger’s concept of daesein, or being-in-itself, Sartre looks at in-itself as the object in the world and for-itself as the consciousness of existence/purpose/activity/etc) and sees the friction between the two as creating much of the ambiguity in existence. She shows how as individuals we see ourselves as, say, the main character in our lives, but also must acknowledge that we are side or background characters in the lives of others. We are both subject and object, and while we are free we also exist in the lives of others as ‘factic’ and operating under all the factors of reality and forces of society (laws, socioeconomics, social codes, and social barriers of prejudices/racism/sexism/etc to name a few). This is our ambiguity, and life is ambiguous. We set out with goals and feelings and inevitably die.
She draws a distinction between ambiguity and absurdism as well. ‘To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning,’ she writes, ‘to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won.’ While Camus leaned into the absurdity in life, writing that we find happiness in the struggle itself, Beauvoir looks at how that does not form an ethical system that enhances freedoms for all.‘Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence. Thus, to say that action has to be lived in its truth, that is, in the consciousness of the antinomies which it involves, does not mean that one has to renounce it.’
In a way it makes Camus feel overtly nihilistic and Beauvoir argues that freedom comes from the pursuit of it. Transcendence much be found by itself but never actually fulfilled as we inevitably die and the world continues on. As an example, she argues artists don’t set out to “finish” art but instead to capture it in its moment, time always marches on and expands on what came before, which she also addresses in terms of how society and politics are always changing over time.
’Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring. It is the original condition of all justification of existence.’
Freedom creates values but this sort of subjective approach has an objective morality of responsibility with freedom. Beauvoir teaches us to remember that our will to freedom affects all those around us, creating a sense of morality that enhancing freedom is ethically correct, but restricting freedom of others even in enhancing our own, is not.‘A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future; the existence of others as a freedom defines my situation and is even the condition of my own freedom. I am oppressed if I am thrown into prison, but not if I am kept from throwing my neighbor into prison.’
There is a good look at the ways systems purported to promote freedom often become restrictive. Freedom must be employed productively or it becomes oppressive, and a large part of
The Second Sex shows that subjugation comes when a person (women, in this instance) is denied being thought of as for-itself and viewed instead as an object/property or other aspect of materialism. She also shows how moral evil for existentialists is essentially anything preventing us from accepting life’s ambiguity being able to improve both yourself and the world together. Or, anything that makes your valuation the object of another’s will.
‘Man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.’
Part two examines how as we enter adulthood we realize that we not only have freedom but responsibility and our actions shape the world. She breaks down several ‘ways of being’ and how that relates to ideas of ambiguity and freedom which I suppose could serve as a replacement for the enneagram if you wanted. These include examples like the sub-man who is so afraid of action they deny their own freedom and aims to do nothing at all, the adventurer who seeks their freedom but often runs over that of others, or the passionate man who is similar but allows diminishment of his own freedoms for others. Problems arise due to either rejecting the experience of freedom or misunderstanding the meaning of it, and one should live with passion and generosity while protecting both themselves and others from becoming an object of another’s will. We must accept the burdens of freedom and not avoid them.
‘The oppressed can fulfill his freedom as a man only in revolt.’
The third section emphasizes actions and how they relate in her concept of ethical ambiguity. Much of this addresses the misuse of freedom, particularly in ways that oppress others and how this is always evil. Yet because oppression always exists, and because oppressors go to great lengths to convince the oppress this is just the “natural” order or way of things (think how under capitalism the poor are mistakenly socially framed as failures to mislead from acknowledging them as victims) and thereby we must always be in revolt. She addresses
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and how his works acknowledges 'the struggle will never cease' and 'does not dare delude himself with the idea of a stationary future.''The fundemental ambiguity of the human condition will always open up to men the possibility of opposing choices; there will always be within them the desire to be that being of whom they have made themsleves a lack, the flight from the anguish of freedom; the plane of hell, of struggle, will never be eliminated; freedom will never be given; it will always have to be won.'
I’m reminded of Le Guin’s
The Dispossessed and how society is an endlessly revolving series of revolutions and must always be aimed at expanded ethical freedoms. She cites
Leon Trotsky envisaging 'the future as a permanent revolution' and once again reiterates than ethics is of the moment and not a mark on a static line through time.
When it comes to revolt, Beauvoir looks at how during revolt 'we can conquor our enemies only by acting on their facticity, by reducing them to things,' and how, in the process of this, we 'have to make ourselves things' in return. This also gets into the issue of violence and she asks if there are circumstances when violence is justified against oppressors (this comes after the occupation of France by the Nazis during which Beauvoir worked with the Underground).‘In order for a liberating action to be a thoroughly moral action, it would have to be achieved through a conversion of the oppressors: there would then be a reconciliation of all freedoms. But no one any longer dares to abandon himself today to these utopian reveries.’
She posits that when violene is done to, say, a 16 year old Nazi on the battlefield 'it was not he whom we hated but his masters,' but also that 'the oppressors would not be so strong if they did not have accomplices among the oppressed themselves.' She admits that, ideally, we should re-educate those who have been persuayed to serve the oppressors in violence and unethical action, but the 'urgency of struggle forbits slow labor.' The conclusion she arrives at is 'we are obliged to destroy not only the oppressor but also those who serve him, whether they do so out of ignorance or out of constraint.'
Overall, we are called to ask how we commit to freedom for the self while also making room to the freedom of all others. This is explored in many aspects of ambiguity and ethical conundrums where the point of objectivity in the subjective reality is always freedom. The Ethics of Ambiguity is a great and worthwhile read that would serve as a perfect introduction to existentialism ethics or simply to anyone interested in ethical philosophy in general. Perhaps not her strongest work, yet still plenty engaging and interesting. I’ve always found her method of examining concepts to be very effective and promote understanding without being overly obfuscating. I also enjoyed many ways how I could see her expanding or using these ideas in the underpinnings of her later work,
The Second Sex. Short, but not short on big ideas to wrestle with, The Ethics of Ambiguity is a staple of existentialist works.
‘ we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite.’ -
Oh, Simone. You lend thoughtful sobriety to Sartrean and Camus-ian existential whingeing.
Frankly though, existentialist writings (in the form of philosophical treatises, NOT novels - in fact, NEVER novels) tire me. This one got a bit tedious - I dislike zigzagging from grandiosity to brutal specifics - but things picked up in the end.
Favorite lines:
(1) "My contemplation is an excruciation only because it is also a joy."
(2) "The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence."
I really should stop talking to dead philosophers. The conversations with the living ones are those that will land me a job. -
responding to my reading slump by becoming an existentialist
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L’homme est une passion inutile.
- Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Etre et le Néant (1943)
Le propre de toute morale c'est de considérer la vie humaine comme une partie que l'on peut gagner ou perdre, et d'enseigner à l'homme le moyen de gagner.
- Simone de Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté (1947)
(*)
Any philosophical work is an expression of a culture at a particular moment of time as well as of the individual author's personality and experience. The middle class Parisian intellectuals who produced one of the many quite loosely related "Existentialisms" were writing at the end of and immediately following the most widely destructive self-immolation humankind has heretofore wreaked upon itself. As devastating to morale and value systems as the First World War had been, at the end of the Second Europe was lying stunned on its back wondering if anything had any value except possibly naked life itself, that genetically programmed need of all animals to hold onto life.
This is part of the context in which Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and a few others modified earlier ""Existentialisms" to produce an apparently radical sweeping-the-board-clear in an effort initially to focus on the individual stripped of all his bonds to failed societies and discredited value systems. That was just the right moment and place for this effort, and, because it grew out of and expressed a widely shared sentiment, a bowdlerized caricature became quite fashionable for a time (along with goatees and black sweaters).
When I was a very young man who rejected nearly everything his culture and time said was valuable, reading the works of the French Existentialists was exactly what I needed to help me go my own way. Of course, being psychologically and intellectually useful to me and being a coherent, well thought out philosophy are not identical. Which is not to say that I am going to participate in the GR snark directed at existentialism.(**)
No, what I am going to do is review a particularly nice booklength essay by Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté - translated into English under the title The Ethics of Ambiguity - which works out the ethical consequences of Sartre's highly metaphysical musings in L’Etre et le Néant.
Sartre's deliberately provocative formula at the top of the review notwithstanding, one of de Beauvoir's purposes in this essay is to explain why despair need not be a consequence of Sartre's metaphysical position. On the contrary - and this is how I received Sartre's message as a young man - it can also lead to a joyful and explorative liberation.
For Sartre and de Beauvoir, it is self-consciousness that distinguishes humankind from all other animals, and it is this self-consciousness, this standing at a pondering distance from both oneself and the rest of existence, that alienates him from himself and all the rest. In certain sects of Buddhism, precisely this self-consciousness is to be discarded as an illusion in favor of returning to the actual: the great sea of being out of which all the "ten thousand things" emerge for a time and then return. For Sartre and de Beauvoir, by contrast, in order to be "authentic," one must "assume," i.e. recognize and accept, this alienation as a basic attribute of humankind. They deny all transcendent entities and values - what is here in this world is all there is, and all values, goals and projects are completely up to us. And precisely because they are up to us and not imposed transcendentally from elsewhere, we, and nothing else, are responsible for what we make of our lives and the world.
But how does one go about choosing these values, goals and projects? Does one follow urges, whims, etc.; does one accept the values, goals and projects of the culture we find ourselves born into; does one do something else altogether, instead? One is free to make one of the first two choices, though it is clear that the philosophers do not approve of thoughtlessly going along with pure contingence; one would, in terms of her quote at the top, have lost the game.
de Beauvoir proposes methods - methods that are largely aimed at benefiting other persons as well as oneself - one can employ to answer the first question; she does not propose rules. And like many of the classical authors' works on ethics, she examines concrete situations. She emphasizes that humankind is always making decisions - also ethical decisions - in a state of incomplete information, so one always risks making a mistake in every choice. That is another basic attribute of humankind one must "assume."
Because every individual has free choice, individuals can make choices that impinge upon the freedom of choice of other persons. When this constraint on one's own freedom reaches a certain point - where this point lies will depend upon the individual - de Beauvoir recognizes the necessity for the individual to remove this constraint by any means necessary, including force. One can hardly wonder, since she had witnessed the rampages of the Nazis, that she explicitly recognizes the moral necessity of war. The liberty of others can turn into a real problem, but that one also must "assume."
Oh how this word "liberty," this freedom to choose and create, must have resonated at the end of the Second World War, and how it did resonate in my young breast much later! By pulling back from the world and one's self-in-the-world through this act of self-consciousness, one finds oneself in the position to formulate both value and the meaning of what one observes. In the words of one of de Beauvoir's striking, though somewhat misleading formulas:
La liberté est la source d'où surgissent toutes les significations et toutes les valeurs.
(Liberty is the source whence surges all significations and all values.)
Later in life I learned that the existentialists' works were written in a philosophical context that lessened somewhat the radicality of their vision. The subject-object dichotomy was made the central point of all the German Idealists' metaphysics beginning at least with Kant, and despite the phenomenological aspects of their work, a strong scent of idealism was not to be overlooked in the early and middle periods of Sartre's and de Beauvoir's texts. Nonetheless, they consistently rejected the Idealists' absolutes, both metaphysical and ethical, and tried to work out a way to live with their absence. Despite all the snark I've read, I consider their effort to be admirable.
It is true that the French Existentialists loved their formules, but that is true of nearly every French intellectual I've ever read. It's part of the culture. It's also true that a certain kind of serious play is being carried out in language games like
C'est dire qu'il ne saurait y avoir de devoir être que pour un être qui, selon la définition existentialiste, se met en question dans son être, un être qui est à distance de soi-même et qui a à être son être.
where de Beauvoir capitalizes upon the fact that in French "être" means "to be","being" in the sense of "entity," and "being" in the metaphysical sense.(***) She is certainly not alone in playing such games. None of this disturbs me, on the contrary, though I acknowledge that it certainly can drive some readers up the wall. Fair warning...
(*) Man is a useless passion.
The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.
(**) Which, from what I have read, seems to be directed at the bowdlerized caricature and appears not to be informed by a careful reading of the original texts.
(***) An approximation:
That is to say there would be no "should be" except for a being who, according to the existentialist definition, questions his own "being", a being who stands at a distance from himself and who has to be his "being."
This is meaningfully decipherable, but, let's face it, it's likely that here she let the language guide the thought instead of the thought guide the language.
Rating
http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/974... -
With the the Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir outlines an existentialist ethics, of which she was inspired to write by Jean-Paul Sartre’s promise to do so at the end of 'Being and Nothingness' in 1943. A book that he wrote many notes for, but which he never completed. The Ethics of Ambiguity is one of de Beauvoir’s most intriguing and original philosophical works. But is the theory it contains defensible? And does it give us practical guidance for how to live our lives? This, of course is simply down to the reader, and how most of what she says is perceived. I personally don't think it's her best work (including novels), but if you are a fan of her work, its still worth a read.
de Beauvoir begins with the central existentialist premise that existence precedes essence. Basically, we humans create our own essence or nature through our choices and actions. When de Beauvoir discusses human essence, she refers not only to this general notion, but also to German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s assertion in Being and Time that our creation of ourselves in the present is based both on our past actions and on the choices that we make while projecting ourselves into the future. The aspect of her ethics dealing with choice stems from Sartre’s distinction between the in-itself and the for-itself – but with de Beauvoir’s own take on the subject.
de Beauvoir's investigation of the space of freedom vs structure provides an insight into the need for structure in order for freedom to exist. She provides a contrast between the ontological freedom given at our birth, and the moral freedom we act through choice and goes on to contrast choice against decision and action. In all of these contrasts de Beauvoir works through the paradoxical nature of human existence and offers a way to a moral freedom which accepts ambiguity as a necessary structure of human existence, thus providing a further contrast between the deconstructive science we need for the natural sciences and the structured freedom of ambiguity which supports human existence.
It's no doubt a deep and thoughtful read that requires complete and utter attention, however, even for me, I still found it a bit too intellectually academic, so its more one for the budding enthusiast studying philosophy/existentialism.
3.5/5 -
Good tips on how to not accidentally become a fascist, and other stuff. I'm not at all well-read in philosophy, but this relatively short text seemed to me to be an excellent introduction to existentialism. The whole idea around "ambiguity" (as I understand it) is that life isn't going to plop down a nicely wrapped package of Meaning into your lap - you have to create meaning in every moment. This contrasts with the idea of "absurdity" (see Camus), which suggests that not only can meaning not be given to you, it ultimately can not be created at all. De Beauvoir also discusses freedom and oppression with great subtly, in ways that are still highly applicable to today's world politics. I really enjoyed this book.
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De Beauvoir largely succeeds here in refuting the ridiculous claims that people used when trying to argue against the existentialists. Her prose is fairly straight forward (at least compared to Sartre's) and her arguments are very well crafted. You really get a sense in this work of how existential thought arose as a response to the butchery of the second world war. She puts a more human face on her ideas than Sartre. Her concept of ambiguity in the book's conclusion deftly predicts much of the rest of 20th century philosophy and critical thought.
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The term "existentialism" has been, like "postmodern" or "hipster," so stretched to death that it has long since stopped meaning anything at all. But Simone de Beauvoir makes a good go of trying to fit the ethics of an existentialist age-- one defined, not by meaninglessness as is so often presupposed as ambiguity-- into a more comprehensive framework for understanding the world. She finds herself, in true existentialist fashion, developing more questions than answers, and more negations and dead ends than positive solutions. She's especially good at calling out anyone who thinks they figured it out, and yet she doesn't use her intellectual agnosticism as a smokescreen against any other argument. I like to read philosophy for its provocative quality, and I feel plenty provoked, so for me it was a success.
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Erroneamente alla parola "esistenzialismo" appare unicamente alla mente Sartre e la sua produzione. Ecco, l'esistenzialismo di de Beauvoir è altrettanto interessante e degno di nota del corrispondente più conosciuto. Oltre a "Il secondo sesso" (fortunatamente) Simone de Beauvoir ha scritto anche altro. E' tempo di scoprirlo. -
"We are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite."
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To attain his truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.
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“For a freedom wills itself genuinely only by willing itself as an indefinite movement through the freedom of others; as soon as it withdraws into itself, it denies itself on behalf of some object which it prefers to itself: we know well enough what sort of freedom the P. R. L. demands: it is property, the feeling of possession, capital, comfort, moral security. We have to respect freedom only when it is intended for freedom, not when it strays, flees itself, and resigns itself. A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future; the existence of others as a freedom defines my situation and is even the condition of my own freedom. I am oppressed if I am thrown into prison, but not if I am kept from throwing my neighbor into prison.”
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Moral redigida a partir de O Ser e o Nada de Jean Paul Sartre, está dividido da seguinte forma:
Parte 1: Explanação dos conceitos de ambiguidade e liberdade presentes na obra de Sartre, Beauvoir explicita que valores não são inatos e sim advindos de escolhas.
Parte 2: Elabora o conceito de liberdade pessoal e a interação com o Outro, de como os indivíduos fazem de tudo para negar a própria liberdade assimilando os valores dos outros ao invés de construir sua própria moral, embora há quem desenvolva uma liberdade genuína onde o querer-se livre é também querer livre o outro.
Parte 3: Dividida em cinco sessões, A Atitude Estética, Liberdade e Libertação, As Antinomias da Ação, O Presente e o Futuro, A Ambiguidade e uma conclusão. Todo o capítulo explora as nuances da liberdade ativa no mundo.
Enfim, altamente recomendável, não só para os amantes do existencialismo, mas para todos interessados no ser humano e suas deliberações éticas. -
“Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.”
Beauvoir did a brilliant analysis of the ethical condition of man which Sartre at the end of his masterpiece Being and nothingness promised he would do,but he was unable to kept his promise. Since man is only an useless passion in Sartre's view,then how can we give any sense of ethical meaning in our daily conduct?That's why, people very often complained about the impracticality of existential philosophy. But Beauvoir, in this book,just made it clear what really existentialism means in the daily situation of man's life. In a word,she completed the task for her boyfriend. So this book also can be seen as the final conclusion of Sartre's Being and nothingness. Here,Beauvoir started with Sartre's notion of freedom and little by little explained how man in order to escape the anguish of his freedom strives futilely to be the foundation of his own being or something fixed or in Sartre's words, ‘to become God’. And this is how,Beauvoir claims,fascism and so many political tyranny arise to condemn man again in his own freedom. But how should a men act then if there are no objective ethics? Beauvoir says that the condition of human being is ambiguous, so are his ethics. But he must choose. And to choose in this world in the midsts of others,he first and foremost have to realize that “he is lack of being which flees itself perpetually to be a lack of being again” who exist also for others and that's how man usually gives value to his everyday situation and circumstances. And to realize is to assert this lack at the heart of his being;that man can never know the universal outcome, but only his fixed finite goals,the value of which must be shifted perpetually. So as existence is ambiguous, never something fixed,we can only find meaning continuously by our own individual choice. And it is only then possible for man to act in an ethical manner.
This is where we can see how Beauvoir's analysis of man's condition contradicts Albert Camus's view of absurdity.
Beauvoir says:
“The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; so to say it is ambiguous is to assert that it's meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure & outrageousness, to save his existence.” -
It surprised me that I enjoyed this book so much, because normally I can't stand studying ethics. However Simone de Beauvoir made some very strong, valid points in this piece. Having lived through both the world wars and being very involved, along with Sartre, in the French political scene she was able to gain tremendous insight into the ethical dilemmas that come around with any human action on a large scale. The section titled 'The Antimonies of Action' was particularly interesting as she dissected human action in regards specifically to how it relates to other people. I tend to agree with her that most politicians are quick to value the Idea over the content (the people whom the politician is supposed to rule) and will sacrifice innocent life in order to further their future goals whose existence has yet to be fulfilled. Her idea that humans are forced to undergo projects which could possibly fail and most surely will not be realized in their lifetime has a lot of weight behind it. This is the ambiguous nature that modern humans finds themselves in once they realize that the subjective nature of his existence excludes the possibility of a purely objective point of view on which to base life. She also does a very good job of addressing some of the common objections that are brought against Existentialism: it is solipsistic, it results in chaos or inaction, things of that nature. So if you just have questions about how Existentialism can work in real life this is a good text to start with. Her prose and reasoning are very clear and easy to follow, much easier than Sartre's as far as I can tell. All in all a good read with lucid and pressing arguments about issues we still face today.
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"Existentialism does not offer to the reader the consolation of an abstract evasion; existentialism proposes no evasion." SdB
As a nascent reader of philosophy I was fatigued by the on-again-off-again lucidity of her discourse, but not enough to quit. The accessibility and meaning of her prose oscillated; for me comprehension ebbed and flowed from page to page. However, the steadfast reader endures, trusting that at some point her heady prose will make sense and then BAM! they do, the proverbial fog clears and such precision clarity is enlightening. You continue reading, and as quickly as the clarity had come upon you confusion sets in again, (i.e. "The first makes History appear as an intelligible becoming within which the particularity of contingent accidents is reabsorbed...," if anyone has insight to this passage on page 147, I'll buy you a cup of tea for explaining it to me). That said, as suggested I was enlightened by her writings, particularly her notion of man's states of being: child, man, subman, serious, nihilist. With thoughts like, "the child's condition is metaphysically privileged," and "There is the serious from the moment that freedom denies itself to the advantage of ends which one claims are absolute," she conveys solid logic and began for me a starting point from which to finally access existentialism. I closed the 160th and final page of the book immensely satisfied and ready for more.
I read Bernard Frechtman's translation. I wonder if there may be a more lucid translation. -
I liked this book, but I am not sure I will remember it in a few weeks. I don't read a lot of philosophy, and I probably picked up this book because it was cheap at Half-Priced Books and because I like SdB and Sartre, and their separate discussion about freedom. However, I have not read Being and Nothingness, which I should read and then reread this book to know what the exact critique is. Still, I found it useful in "diagnosing" different people's types of covering up their knowledge that they are free and the ambiguity of human condition. I found the explanation of how to judge relative good - which was not very instructive and left extremely vague - to be unconvincingly limited, so much so that it was not difficult, within the course of a single plane ride, to come up with numerous examples that would prove contradictory and difficult in her Ethical system. But I guess if your ethics are only about ambiguity (something that I think is probably sorely lacking in understanding in the contemporary political-social environment), you can have lots of contradictory things.
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I don’t know what de Beauvoir I’d saying half the time, but when I do know what she’s saying blows my mind.
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I was told this was a good book for "beginners" but I struggled so much with this, have been reading it since May and had to push myself through. What Simone says is nevertheless fascinating and vital to the existential school of thought but the density of this text was too heavy for me. I am going to try Simone's fiction and read some hopefully easier texts and then maybe I can revisit this.
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I occaisionally wake in the night and have difficulty getting back to sleep. During a difficult part of my life I was reading
Seven Types of Ambiguity and noticed it put me to sleep. I started reading it when I woke in the night and found it helped. Over the last year
The Ethics of Ambiguity has had this role. This is probably way more than you want to know about my sleeping habits, but it explains why it has taken me so long to finish this book.
It also points-up how dense the writing is, and that I stuck with the book. I am currently making an effort to understand Existentialism and I found that de Beauvoir's writing most often connected to something in my experience or thinking; this is opposed to
Being and Nothingness: an essay in phenomenological ontology, which I quit after 30 pages wondering WTF Sartre was talking about. I especially found a philosophical foundation for Existential psychotherapy. I want to reread this book and believe I would find much more in it. -
This is so far the best non-fiction book I have read this year. Every single page contains something you wouldn't want to not highlight or not take note of. Simone explained in a clear and simple way the Existentialist philosophy and I was dazzled by the way she tackled heavy subjects that gravitate around it such as freedom, utility, revolution, the right to kill, the meaning of life.. She quoted,analysed and challenged many renown figures such as Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard.. and an example was provided after every concept Simone may have thought difficult for the reader to grasp. The edition I had contains both "The Ethics of Ambiguity" and "Pyrrhus and Cineas". The second book is also very interesting as it dealt mainly with our commitment and relationship to others but it is not as powerful as the first, which could be understood since it was her first philosophical essay. I would urge anybody who might read this review to pick up this book
Tout but est en même temps un point de départ et que la liberté humaine est l'ultime, l'unique fin à laquelle l'homme doive se déstiner
Se vouloir libre, c'est aussi vouloir les autres libres; cette volonté n'est pas une formule abstraite, elle indique à chacun des actions concrètes à accomplir -
It is indeed a tour de force on de Beauvoir's part to succeed in turning the absurdity of the human condition into a dialectic of ambiguity which proposes that "we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite." This book is actually a very uplifting and liberating book which does not propose an evasion from our human condition but a way to transcend it.
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Definately the most readable overview of existentialism around, and a good crack at what an existential ethics would mean. She twists herself up in knots trying to cope with Stalinism, but other than that is philosophically consistent in her political approach.
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This book is not only the attempt for an ethics to Sartre's humanist existentialism but also the attempt for a new ethics in a world where the idea of inhuman objectivity doesn't stand anymore. One of the best works of continental philosophy.
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Read this long ago in college. Just now adding it.
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This is a reread. Just as good and just as difficult as the first time I read it! Review eventually.
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While existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty were very much concerned with the concrete reality of the world in which we live and our facticity as human persons, they nevertheless failed to offer a true ethics to complement their persuasive phenomenology. Simone de Beauvoir, a renowned existentialist philosopher, novelist, and feminist theorist, provided just that with her now acclaimed The Ethics of Ambiguity in 1947. Immediately, Beauvoir rejects the notion that existentialism can offer no ethics. “It is . . . claimed that existentialism is a philosophy of the absurd and of despair . . . Let [man] do what he pleases” (8-9). But to deny the existence of God, or of the Platonic Good, is not “to repudiate all ethics.” And if “man is free to define for himself the conditions of a life which is valid in his own eyes,” this by no means implies that he can “choose whatever he likes and act however he likes” (15-16). Contrary to popular belief, existentialism—for Beauvoir, at least—is not nihilistic, as it is first and foremost a philosophy of freedom, and freedoms carry with them serious ethical responsibilities. Ethical decisions are thereby of the utmost importance.
For Beauvoir, like many feminist philosophers who have rehabilitated the concept of autonomy, freedom flourishes within a context of interdependence. “Man can find a justification of his own existence only in the existence of other men,” she asserts. “I concern others and they concern me. There we have an irreducible truth” (78). She rejects a hyper-individualistic solipsism that “exalt[s] the bare will to power” and would lead to “a conflict of opposed wills enclosed in their solitude,” because “one can reveal the world only on a basis revealed by other men. No project can be defined except by its interference with other projects” (76-77). Arah LaChance Adams, in her book Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a “Good” Mother Would Do, helpfully elucidates why our freedom always depends on others. First and foremost, we want our projects not only to please us, but also to “have an intersubjective importance.” If no one appreciates or comments upon this review, for instance, then the exercise of my freedom to write it seems pointless. Second, we need more than mere admirers of our projects; we need active partners and collaborators. I could not have possibly understood or interpreted Beauvoir for the purposes of this review, quite frankly, without the valuable lessons I received from my philosophy instructor. Finally, the full realization of our projects may depend on their impact in the future, so that we need other existents to continue or fulfill our projects after we are unable to do so (160). Philosophers know this all too well, as the claims they make will quickly fade into oblivion if other philosophers fail to perpetuate those claims with scholarship. In sum, any valuable exercise of freedom necessarily depends on other, free existents. Without them, our works could not possibly retain any value at all. “No existence can be validly fulfilled if it is limited to itself,” Beauvoir contends. “It appeals to the existence of others” (72).
Importantly, this interdependence “explains why oppression is possible and why it is hateful” (88). Oppression is no mere abstract concept; if I oppress another person, then I take freedom away from them. Nevertheless, this oppression does not really make sense if I want to actually increase my freedom. If my freedom is tied up with the freedom of all others, and the freedom of any people whom I oppress—or even refuse to help liberate—is limited because of the immanence associated with oppression, then, in fact, my own freedom is constrained. While those who suffer under oppressive systems suffer much more and in a different way than their oppressors, Beauvoir is keen to note that oppression hurts everyone. It is actually in the oppressor’s best interests, she maintains, to cease his oppression and disclose possibilities for the open future of the oppressed. “As long as the reign of the oppressor lasts,” she says, “none of the benefits of oppression is a real benefit” (103). This is what stands behind Beauvoir’s critical assertion, “To will oneself free is also to will others free. This will is not an abstract formula. It points out to each person concrete action to be achieved” (78). Beauvoir, therefore, calls upon us all to reject oppression, help liberate the oppressed, and increase freedom however and whenever we can.
Despite this call to action, Beauvoir is by no means prepared to offer us a clear “plan” for how to act ethically. Toward the end of the book, she points out that most of her claims in The Ethics of Ambiguity remain abstract. “What must be done, practically? Which action is good? Which is bad?” But Beauvoir refuses to answer these questions categorically: “[We don’t ask] the artist, ‘By what procedures does one produce a work whose beauty is guaranteed?’ Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than . . . art. One can merely propose methods” (145). This is why an existentialist ethics, then, is necessarily ambiguous. Many ethical decisions are really, really difficult to make, and Beauvoir determinedly asserts that “no behavior is ever authorized to begin with, and one of the concrete consequences of existentialist ethics is . . . the rejection of every principle of authority” (152). In other words, only freedom, which enables transcendence, has uncontested value, so that oppression must be rejected and liberation aimed for constantly. How? Well, it depends. And what if liberative efforts encroach upon the freedoms of others, even to the point of instrumentalizing them as means, rather than ends? Once more, the answer is unclear, even if Beauvoir advocates for treating human persons as absolute ends. Sometimes, violence is necessary for liberation, even if people are its tools. While this ostensibly equivocating approach toward ethics no doubt frustrates dedicated utilitarians and deontologists, one cannot help but appreciate the obscure reality of the ethical situation Beauvoir captures with such nuance. As she notes in her conclusion, existentialist “ethics is experienced in the truth of life” (172).
Above all, Beauvoir demonstrates that the kind of existentialism she and Sartre advocate for does not, by any means, excuse one from moral activity in the social and political spheres. In fact, Beauvoir makes it very clear that existentialism requires that one consistently work on behalf of the liberative efforts of the oppressed, no matter how unclear or difficult these efforts may be. As noted above, Beauvoir asserts this so forcefully because of the interconnectedness of human freedom; “to will oneself free is also to will others free.” Even if this exercise of will on behalf of the oppressed may at times impede upon the freedom of others, and thereby throw into the question the morality of the task at hand, this should not incapacitate us. After all, ethical decisions are hard. “The man of good will . . . keeps asking himself, ‘Am I really working for the liberation of men? Isn’t this end contested by the sacrifices through which I aim at?’” (144). We must continue to ask ourselves these questions just as we continue to strive toward freedom for all. We will try, fail, and try again. This failure, Beauvoir notes, is why we have ethics in the first place. “Without failure, no ethics” (9). -
There are so many striking lines in this book. "Existence must be asserted in the present if one does not want all life to be defined as an escape toward nothingness." The responsibility and reciprocity of our individual freedom and freedom of others is very touching to read about; coming out of vichy france it's not surprising how much the ethical responsibility to one another is emphasized ("for any abstention is complicity, and complicity in this case is tyranny"). Her rejection of ideals/movements that favor the future over the "concrete thickness of the here and now (the truth of the world)" makes me want to grip onto the present with both hands.
I would like some clarification on the justification of violence she puts forth, and also to better understand if her vision of individual freedom = collective freedom is in line with a marxist perspective or if their ideas disagree with one another? SdB seems to use individual action and its relation with the other as the basis of morality, whereas she says Hegel and Marx use theories of humankind (the Absolute & History) to define it....it seems like she'd be more sympathetic to Kierkegaard (lol) that the interior is above the exterior, when Hegel and Marx would argue the inverse (at least that the collective is above the individual...but SdB also makes a few cases for the collective over the individual so I think she mostly agrees with a collectivist ethos...though she is concerned about the violence that spurs from the individual being reduced to "facticity" in a collectivist world...but I digress).
That's not the point of the book or what I'm left thinking about. I'm thinking about my life's project, how to not be deterred by my "unhappy passion for certainty" and to live up to this line: "Any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive."
