A for Ambiguity

A for Ambiguity 

In Simon de Beauvoir’s “Ethics of Ambiguity,” I find the the second section, “Personal Freedom and Others,” the most fascinating because she demonstrates the process of how we acquire our personal freedom within the construct of society.

“From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity…. but it is also claimed that existentialism is a philosophy of the absurd and of despair.” 

—Simon de Beauvoir

According to Beauvoir, our happiness, unhappiness, and search for meaning within life is based upon our shared experience of the human condition as a child.

We are born into the world protected from the complexities of existence and freedom because of the fact that we do not possess the skills or capacity to examine them just yet. Instead, we inherit a world that already has meaning that we ourselves have not helped to create.

Beauvoir calls this condition the “serious world,” where values and authorities are pre-existing.  

In this “serious world” of ready-made values, we are allowed to practice freedoms as we see fit. The meaning we create for ourselves as children brings no consequences, and we can let our creative imaginations take control as we live our happy, and irresponsible lives. 

“It encloses man in a sterile anguish, in an empty subjectivity. It is incapable of furnishing him with any principle for making choices. Let him do as he pleases.” 

—Simon de Beauvoir

However, time brings what Beauvoir calls the “crisis of adolescence,” in which we are forced to realize our responsibility as existing humans, our own subjectivity, and that of others. It is at this point in life that the easily traced path of childhood branches into a series of unclear, dangerous, and often deceiving trails, which we must choose to go down in hopes of achieving the end goal : 

According to Beauvoir, there are two components to achieving “ethical freedom:”

“One must assume his own subjectivity.” In other words, you must realize your own agency in the world.

But this is where my understanding is a little unclear. If humans are already born with “being,” how does one realize their agency in the world? 

2. Beauvoir also claims : “One must work toward the freedom of human kind” to achieve ethical freedom.

While the first point deals with individual subjectivity, this point asserts that as individuals we exist in relation to one another—and that the existence of other men justifies the existence of us as individuals.

In others words, how can we assume our freedom ethically without simultaneously assuming the freedom of others? If you have achieved both parts, congratulations you have acquired what Beauvoir calls “ethical freedom!” 

But how does Beauvoir differentiate ethical freedom from what we know as moral consciousness? And are the two equivalent?