If de Beauvoir's goal in writing this was to demonstrate that it is possible to live with purpose and virtue in a world torn by the dichotomy of subject and object, of individual and collective, then surely she succeeded. If it was her goal to clarify what the criteria of such a life are, what ethical standards could find application in such a world, the her success is less clear.
This is not surprising. She herself asserts that "Ethics does not furnish recipes any more than do science and art" (134). A set of rules and principles that could lead one to an ethical life would need to be infinitely complex, to account for the endless variety of situations and humans that exist. To delineate the what of ethics is an endless and impossible task. The why, however, turns out to be far more attainable, and it is this that she aims to bring to the surface.
What one does cannot be said to be ethical or unethical. Why one does it, however, is much more vulnerable to judgement. The product is neutral, but the process is not. The closest de Beauvoir comes to putting this clearly is when she says, ". . . what distinguishes the tyrant from the man of good will is that the first rests in the certainty of his aims, whereas the second keeps asking himself, 'Am I really working for the liberation of men?'" (133)
I'm tempted to propose that this book be given the subtitle "The ambiguity of ethics". It is not so much about how to be ethical in an ambiguous, paradoxical world. It is rather about how to address the ambiguity--and subjectivity--of what such an ethics needs to be.
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