s.penkevich's Reviews > The Ethics of Ambiguity

‘To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision.’

Faced with an absence of moral absolutes, one must ask what a code of ethics would look like in a subjective existence. In The Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir (best known for her cornerstone work, The Second Sex, which kickstarted second-wave feminism) address such questions of ethics from a perspective of existentialist thought she was developing with friend and contemporary Jean-Paul Sartre. Having stated in a lecture that Sartre’s Being and Nothingness was inadequate to base an entire ethical system, Simone de Beauvoir approached existential ethics through the basis of human freedom, which she declared the foundation of morality instead of a binary between good and bad. Above all, she argues one must ‘act to defend and develop the moral freedom of oneself and others.’ Across the three sections of The Ethics of Ambiguity, Beauvoir takes a philosophical deep dive into the ambiguity of existence, examining ethical attitudes and ‘ways of being’ people may take in relation to our own freedoms as well as the freedoms of others, arguing that even without a fixed moral absolutism, existentialism provides a path of virtuous and praiseworthy living all the same.

'Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.'

The Ethics of Ambiguity is a highly readable book, and at just under 200pgs it is one that never feels like biting off more than one can chew despite it being a heady and nuanced work worth giving plenty of space to digest. It is a delicious meal of thought, however, and I’ve always found the ways Beauvoir relates her own thinking with the writings of other philosophers to be rather inviting, giving the reader enough context to follow along even if they are unfamiliar with the other’s work. This book offers some excellent looks at her ideas set against the big picture of other ethical systems as well as in context with other existentialist ideas, often writing in defense against criticisms against existentialism for being too bleak or not offering any distinction between right and wrong. Beauvoir asserting that morality is something people develop through life in relation to the current contexts of life instead of a fixed and universal code. She cites and rebuts Fyodor Dostoevsky’s famous line from the The Brothers Karamazov ‘if God is dead, everything is permitted, ’ as she posits that whole humans are ontologically free, life is not a nihilistic free-for-all under existentialism and she also develops criteria that can determine if actions are moral or not.

‘[L]et us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.’

A tenant of existentialist thought is that ‘existence precedes essence,’ namely that objects or ideas exist before value is assigned to them and that, as Sartre argues, life has no meaning until we assign a meaning or essence to it. In this way, Beauvoir argues against any idea of absolute goodness, stating ‘there exists no absolute value’ and that instead value is developed from our choices. So while morality is subjective it is still meaningful because all meaning is subjective. In this way, Beauvoir follows Sartre’s ideas against ‘bad-faith’ living, and that we must desire to always be ‘willing ourselves free’ in authenticity of the self instead of having our value defined by others.

So what is ambiguity? We need to break this down a bit. Beauvoir draws heavily on Sartre’s works in Being and Nothingness on the distinction of anything being ‘in-itself’ or ‘for-itself’ (roughly: using Martin Heidegger’s concept of daesein, or being-in-itself, Sartre looks at in-itself as the object in the world and for-itself as the consciousness of existence/purpose/activity/etc) and sees the friction between the two as creating much of the ambiguity in existence. She shows how as individuals we see ourselves as, say, the main character in our lives, but also must acknowledge that we are side or background characters in the lives of others. We are both subject and object, and while we are free we also exist in the lives of others as ‘factic’ and operating under all the factors of reality and forces of society (laws, socioeconomics, social codes, and social barriers of prejudices/racism/sexism/etc to name a few). This is our ambiguity, and life is ambiguous. We set out with goals and feelings and inevitably die.

She draws a distinction between ambiguity and absurdism as well. ‘To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning,’ she writes, ‘to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won.’ While Camus leaned into the absurdity in life, writing that we find happiness in the struggle itself, Beauvoir looks at how that does not form an ethical system that enhances freedoms for all.

‘Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence. Thus, to say that action has to be lived in its truth, that is, in the consciousness of the antinomies which it involves, does not mean that one has to renounce it.’

In a way it makes Camus feel overtly nihilistic and Beauvoir argues that freedom comes from the pursuit of it. Transcendence much be found by itself but never actually fulfilled as we inevitably die and the world continues on. As an example, she argues artists don’t set out to “finish” art but instead to capture it in its moment, time always marches on and expands on what came before, which she also addresses in terms of how society and politics are always changing over time.

’Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring. It is the original condition of all justification of existence.’

Freedom creates values but this sort of subjective approach has an objective morality of responsibility with freedom. Beauvoir teaches us to remember that our will to freedom affects all those around us, creating a sense of morality that enhancing freedom is ethically correct, but restricting freedom of others even in enhancing our own, is not.

‘A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future; the existence of others as a freedom defines my situation and is even the condition of my own freedom. I am oppressed if I am thrown into prison, but not if I am kept from throwing my neighbor into prison.’

There is a good look at the ways systems purported to promote freedom often become restrictive. Freedom must be employed productively or it becomes oppressive, and a large part of The Second Sex shows that subjugation comes when a person (women, in this instance) is denied being thought of as for-itself and viewed instead as an object/property or other aspect of materialism. She also shows how moral evil for existentialists is essentially anything preventing us from accepting life’s ambiguity being able to improve both yourself and the world together. Or, anything that makes your valuation the object of another’s will.

‘Man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.’

Part two examines how as we enter adulthood we realize that we not only have freedom but responsibility and our actions shape the world. She breaks down several ‘ways of being’ and how that relates to ideas of ambiguity and freedom which I suppose could serve as a replacement for the enneagram if you wanted. These include examples like the sub-man who is so afraid of action they deny their own freedom and aims to do nothing at all, the adventurer who seeks their freedom but often runs over that of others, or the passionate man who is similar but allows diminishment of his own freedoms for others. Problems arise due to either rejecting the experience of freedom or misunderstanding the meaning of it, and one should live with passion and generosity while protecting both themselves and others from becoming an object of another’s will. We must accept the burdens of freedom and not avoid them.

‘The oppressed can fulfill his freedom as a man only in revolt.’

The third section emphasizes actions and how they relate in her concept of ethical ambiguity. Much of this addresses the misuse of freedom, particularly in ways that oppress others and how this is always evil. Yet because oppression always exists, and because oppressors go to great lengths to convince the oppress this is just the “natural” order or way of things (think how under capitalism the poor are mistakenly socially framed as failures to mislead from acknowledging them as victims) and thereby we must always be in revolt. She addresses Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and how his works acknowledges 'the struggle will never cease' and 'does not dare delude himself with the idea of a stationary future.'

'The fundemental ambiguity of the human condition will always open up to men the possibility of opposing choices; there will always be within them the desire to be that being of whom they have made themsleves a lack, the flight from the anguish of freedom; the plane of hell, of struggle, will never be eliminated; freedom will never be given; it will always have to be won.'

I’m reminded of Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and how society is an endlessly revolving series of revolutions and must always be aimed at expanded ethical freedoms. She cites Leon Trotsky envisaging 'the future as a permanent revolution' and once again reiterates than ethics is of the moment and not a mark on a static line through time.

When it comes to revolt, Beauvoir looks at how during revolt 'we can conquor our enemies only by acting on their facticity, by reducing them to things,' and how, in the process of this, we 'have to make ourselves things' in return. This also gets into the issue of violence and she asks if there are circumstances when violence is justified against oppressors (this comes after the occupation of France by the Nazis during which Beauvoir worked with the Underground).

‘In order for a liberating action to be a thoroughly moral action, it would have to be achieved through a conversion of the oppressors: there would then be a reconciliation of all freedoms. But no one any longer dares to abandon himself today to these utopian reveries.’

She posits that when violene is done to, say, a 16 year old Nazi on the battlefield 'it was not he whom we hated but his masters,' but also that 'the oppressors would not be so strong if they did not have accomplices among the oppressed themselves.' She admits that, ideally, we should re-educate those who have been persuayed to serve the oppressors in violence and unethical action, but the 'urgency of struggle forbits slow labor.' The conclusion she arrives at is '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.'

Overall, we are called to ask how we commit to freedom for the self while also making room to the freedom of all others. This is explored in many aspects of ambiguity and ethical conundrums where the point of objectivity in the subjective reality is always freedom. The Ethics of Ambiguity is a great and worthwhile read that would serve as a perfect introduction to existentialism ethics or simply to anyone interested in ethical philosophy in general. Perhaps not her strongest work, yet still plenty engaging and interesting. I’ve always found her method of examining concepts to be very effective and promote understanding without being overly obfuscating. I also enjoyed many ways how I could see her expanding or using these ideas in the underpinnings of her later work, The Second Sex. Short, but not short on big ideas to wrestle with, The Ethics of Ambiguity is a staple of existentialist works.

‘ we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite.’