The Ethics Of Ambiguity

Part III looks at the positive, constructiveaspects of the human condition. It is broken up into five sub-sections.

1.   The Aesthetic Attitude.The first of the sub-sections considers the way some men view the world with “detached contemplation,” much in the way an artist or writer would:

Outside of time and far from menhe [the detached person] thinks he does not belong to, like a pure beholding; this impersonal version equalizes all situations; it apprehends them only in the indifference of their differences; it excludes any preference(80).

De Beauvoir does not believe it is possible to remain truly detached, particularly during war and other times of turmoil. She uses an example from wartime France to illustrate her point: “Those French intellectuals who, in the name of history, poetry, or art, sought to rise above the drama of the age, were willynilly its actors; more or less explicitly, they were playing the occupier’s game” (82). Even the detached observer is forced to act in times of crisis.

2.  Freedom and Liberation. Here,de Beauvoir focuses on the nature of oppression. Drawing on examples from Nazism, American slavery, and Arabian colonialism, de Beauvoir sees oppressive regimes as inevitable. She writes that, while humans do have the option to act morally good, the fact is that “there are men who can justify their life only by a negative action” (87). De Beauvoir also makes the point that wartime divides mankind into opposing factions—there is no neutral, and every person falls onto one team or another. Oppressive systems separate the world into “two clans,” being on the one hand “those who enlighten mankind by thrusting it ahead of itself” and on the other “those who are condemned to mark time hopelessly in order to merely support the collectivity; their life is a pure repetition of mechanical gestures” (89). De Beauvoir concludes by saying that we must “reject oppression at any cost” (103).

3.  The Antinomies of Action. With oppression and suffering taken as givens, de Beauvoir examines the paradoxical and often-tragic decisions people make while living in oppressive conditions. She uses many examples from World War II throughout this sub-section. For example, in the case of tyrants (and one can extend this to Hitler), humans must treat them “as things” rather than people, and remove them from power by any means necessary “in order to win the freedom of all” (105). De Beauvoir gives clear rules of conduct for dealing with tyrants: “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” (106).

This section is infused with a realistic, but hopeful message: “In order for this world to have any importance, in order for our undertaking to have a meaning and to be worthy of sacrifices, we must affirm the concrete and particular thickness of this world and the individual reality of our projects and ourselves(114). De Beauvoir claims that, without an “affirmation of the future” (114), we have no reason to live, and so the individual must pursue positive projects and goals.

4.  The Present and the Future. This section deals with the concepts of time, examining how both the present and the future influence our day-to-day lives. Ultimately, de Beauvoir urges human beings to live in the present moment. She writes that those who live in the future for a higher cause—for instance, a religious man who lives his life thinking about a future in heaven—effectively bury their freedom in the pursuit of a future that may not exist.

As an existentialist, de Beauvoir does not believe in any absolute values: “The tasks we have set up for ourselves and which, though exceeding the limits of our lives, are ours, must find their meaning in themselves and not in a mythical Historical end” (138). De Beauvoir urges humans to pursue a positive, productive future, subjectively defined by whatever is most important to them.

5.  Ambiguity. In this sub-section, de Beauvoir further refines the concept of ambiguity, which she begins by differentiating from 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” (139).

In line with the existentialist tradition, subjective values (rather than absolute ones) contribute to the ambiguousness of life. De Beauvoir acknowledges that this subjectivity is rather confusing, and somewhat daunting, but truth is not simple: “What must be done, practically? What action is good? Which is bad? To ask such a question is also to fall into a naive abstraction...[e]thics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art. One can merely propose methods” (145). 

Keeping method in mind, de Beauvoir outlines a set of existentialist demandsas guidance on how one should live one’s life:

We object to the inquisitors who want to create faith and virtue from without; we object to all forms of fascism which seek to fashion the happiness of man from without; and also the paternalism which thinks that it has done something for man by prohibiting him from certain possibilities of temptation, whereas what is necessary is to give him reasons for resisting it (149).

The anti-fascist argument that has been building throughout the text comes into sharp focus in this section. While still upholding the existentialist’s commitment to ambiguousness, de Beauvoir is clear on the point of tyranny: “Tyranny and crime must be kept from triumphantly establishing themselves in the world; the conquest of freedom is [tyrants’] only justification, and the assertion of freedom against them must therefore be kept alive” (168).