The Ethics of Ambiguity
by S. DEBEAUVOIR
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Book Summary Information
Author: S. DEBEAUVOIREdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1976-01-01
ISBN: 080650160X
Number of pages: 162
Publisher: Citadel
Book Reviews of The Ethics of Ambiguity
Book Review: A brilliant book - an outline for an ethics rooted in radical freedom
Summary: 5 Stars
The Ethics of Ambiguity is a first rate philosophical study, and important contribution to ethics, that demonstrates the radical freedom proclaimed by existentialists to carry with it ethical responsibilities. The insight that the essence of human being is freedom, or that we are just what we make of ourselves and there are no absolutes does not lead to nihilism, but rather to the recognition that we are answerable to the others with whom we must collaborate in the construction of human existence.
The core of the book is in the second chapter, where Beauvoir outlines a progressively more adequate series of responses to the awareness of freedom. The child can remain ignorant of the ways in which her choices reflect back upon her, and begin imperceptibly to define who she is and determine a destiny; but in adolescence we all grasp, in varying degrees, that if who we are has been shaped by the free and somewhat arbitrary choices of our parents and guardians, who we will become is up to us. It's easy, at that point, to deny or reject our freedom and fall into complacency or routine, but to do so is to be not fully human, a "sub-man" who rejects responsibility and lives just to live and according to habit. Such are easily manipulated by trends and marketing and political slogans of whatever content.
The first stage along the way of accepting freedom, according to Beauvoir, more pernicious perhaps but still an advance on the "sub-man," is what she calls the "serious man": the one who subordinates freedom to a cause - a war, an ideal, a gang, a program or a religion - whatever it is, and embraces that cause as if it were the one and only thing worth choosing, as if choice itself were not what matters and as if any and all freedoms that stand in the way of the cause are to be suppressed.
Beauvoir outlines a series of "ways of being" - the adventurer, the passionate person, the lover, the artist and intellectual - each of which can be understood as overcoming the deficiencies of the prior, in living up to the demands of freedom. Ultimately, she argues, to be free involves dedicating oneself to the cause of freedom, realizing some good that allows others also to discover that good. Teaching could fit this pattern, but so could revolutionary activity; she argues that in some situations that may be what is called for, and in such situations the ambiguous nature of free activity would be evident: that in order to achieve freedom I must struggle against the choices and activities of those who suppress freedom.
Beauvoir's argument in this book is provocative and compelling, and leaves one with much to reflect on. While some of the works once considered pivotal for the existentialist "movement" may appear to be directly bound to a particular time and place (e.g. the cafes and lounges of postwar Paris), Simone de Beauvoir's excellent little treatise on existentialist ethics has lost none of its relevance or urgency. Highly recommended!
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