The Ethics Of Ambiguity

The theme of ambiguousness is central to de Beauvoir’s philosophy. She sees human existence as having a “fundamental ambiguity” and that it is one (perhaps the only) “genuine condition of our life” (8).

Ambiguity in human existence, she argues, stems from the ever-present tension between man’s desire to transcend the world around them while also having the weight of the world imposing irrefutable, immutable conditions on our lives. (Those irrefutable conditions are referred to by de Beauvoir as “facticity,” which is another important concept in this text.) Ambiguity, and its attendant paradoxes, appear throughout the book. The notion, for de Beauvoir, seems like a particularly timely one, as paradox abounds in post-wartime Europe and the rest of the world: “Men of today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox of their condition” (7).

For the existentialist, the nature of human freedom is of the utmost importance, since it is the foundational fact from which the rest of the philosophy stems. De Beauvoir states that “freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring,” (23), and that “man is free; but he finds his law in his very freedom” (170). These are just two examples among many references to the importance of human freedom throughout the text.