The ethics of ambiguity
First published 1962 · English · 164 pages
- Novels
- Historical fiction
A philosophical essay first published in French in 1947. Beauvoir builds an ethics on existentialist ideas: human beings are free, but live in a world without fixed meaning and with no certain guide to action. She argues that freedom is not a private possession and that people must will the freedom of others as well as their own. She examines ways people avoid this burden, such as the serious man, the nihilist and the adventurer. The book is clear and humane, and a good introduction to her thought.
Quotes
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.
The idea that defines all humanism is that the world is not a given world, foreign to man, one to which he has to force himself to yield without. It is the world willed by man, insofar as his will expresses his genuine reality.
There is an ethics only if there is a problem to solve.
In order for the universe of revolutionary values to arise, a subjective movement must create them in revolt and hope.