ANOTHER REARGUARD ACTION
On Simone de Beauvoir's Ethical Prescription
Geoffrey Hamilton
April 1, 1995
The idiom, a 'can of worms', describes the ethical aspects of existentialist
thought and, since Kierkegaard, proponents have tried to 'keep a lid on it'.
They have fought a rearguard action against a charge of nihilism (the worms)
in existentialist thought and have succeeded - to a degree. However, given
that a hundred years after Kierkegaard, Simone de Beauvoir takes up the same
issue - as though the defenses of the past had no effect - it might be said
that the power of nihilistic tendencies was still inspiring fear among the
faithful.
More than previous defences of the movement's ethics, de Beauvoir's
Ethics of Ambiguity (a contingent absolute, her first paradox) tackles the
need for a moral groundwork in a succinct and convincing manner. This does not
mean that it succeeds more than the others, because, while it is to be
commended for its clarity, like the others it fails to escape the power
of the question...why?
Why does an ethic need to exist? This why question should be asked of
every ethic. The problem with the usual answers to this question is that
they constantly beg the question. Some examples of this phenomenon are,
'because humans would be allowed to do anything to each other without one,'
and 'then no action could be a good action.' They beg the question because they
presuppose an ethic in order to claim an ethic. de Beauvoir commits a
similar mistake by calling her ideas - which she says are existentialism's,
"...the only proposition of salvation which one can address to men."
This proposition is spelled out as one that claims that "...it is up to
each one to fulfill his existence as an absolute...". She also says, "If
it came to be that each man did what he must, existence would be saved in
each one without there being any need of dreaming of a paradise where all
would be reconciled in death". Her conclusion then seems to be that
her ethic (the only ethic one can address to men) is good because it is
good to fulfill one's existence. She begs the question - 'why can't fulfilling existence by willing the freedom
of oneself and others (her definition) be a neutral act? '
Her reply would be that each one of us creates the prospect of an ethical
absolute. If a person has not committed suicide then he has an absolute
value for his life and that this value "...will
justify itself to the extant that it genuinely justifies the world".
How we justify the world is with our willed, yet, at the same time,
given freedom (her second paradox).
We are born free, within contingencies,
but we must will our own and other's freedom. What is in the interest of
others is in the interest of ourselves and vise versa. She says, "Man
can find a justification of his own existence only in the existence of
other men". This is a serious logical leap and one she spends much time
elaborating on but not addressing.
She is ignoring the possibility that it is only our genetic programming which tells
us we need others to give
meaning to ourselves. If it is true that there is an absolute value we
give ourselves when we decide not to commit suicide, it does not follow
that the value of all others is what makes our lives
valuable. (She does not divide the others, so she must mean all the
others.)
While it could be defended that the value of our friends and
community could account for the value we give our lives, it is not true
that we need to value all people to make our lives valuable.
Only a few people are sufficient to cause a value for oneself, but she
heaps together all people in her argument. We can will the freedom
of certain people which can will our own freedom, but this does not imply
that all people need to be willed free to make one free -
except religio-abstractly.
But again, the need for an ethic must be argued for.
Why is it good to be willed free? Why does my value for something like my
life constitute an ethical basis, especially since another's ethical basis
can be diametrically opposed to mine? She acknowledges this (a third paradox),
"Thus it is possible, and often happens, that one finds himself obliged to
oppress and kill men who are pursuing goals whose validity one acknowledges
himself." Given this, how can one's absolute value for oneself be an
ethical basis?
This third paradox is another of her failings, but she
embraces the idea, "No project can be defined except by its interference
with other projects" and at the same time to will one's freedom one
must will the freedom of others. This would mean that a project of
willing others' freedom would also interfere in their willing of their
freedom. But she does backpeddle slightly from the paradox by saying that
a freedom that is "interested only in denying freedom must be denied" .
This proviso fails to de-legitimize any person, even Hitler types, because
their interests, like all 'evil' people's, are not limited to denying
things, but also to promoting things, otherwise no claim of relative
superiority could be made. If it is unlikely that one can avoid interfering
with others and unlikely that one is only interested in interfering with
others, who is bad then? One can begin to see that her
ethic has a very narrow position - if any.
Each paradox - the first, that her ethic is absolute and contingent, the
second, a given freedom must be willed to be good, and the third paradox,
that we interfere with others freedoms even by willing their freedoms -
would seem to create a series of impossible conundrums for the seeker of
her ethical framework. But given how no ethical system can avoid the need
for logical leaps (like begging the question and heaping thing together by
saying all is the same as some ), then
de Beauvoir's ethic is no different and is as equally (in)capable of providing
an ethical framework.
What that ethic is is not charted for the
reader, but it is effectively penned-in by numerous precepts. It is a freedom
that does not become "engulfed in any goal" but that aims at a goal
and an open future. It is a freedom that accepts "the tension of the
struggle (and)...actively seek(s) to perpetuate itself". But it
is also a "universal, absolute end which freedom itself is" . This
last quotation contradicts the idea that one must not be engulfed in a
goal, but an ethic need not heed logic.
Also, the ethic of freedom is not only a goal, it itself has a goal: the
surpassing by life of itself, "Life is occupied in both perpetuating
itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself,
then living is only not dying, and human existence is indistinguishable
from an absurd vegetation..." . The surpassing she mentions is a
vague aim but she unintentionally suggests what it is, "the tendency of
man is not to reduce himself but to increase his power.... To assert
the reign of the human is to acknowledge man...". Power is an
unusual enough aim for an ethic, but she further peculiarizes this
ethic by the proviso,
"a life justifies itself only if its effort to perpetuate itself is
integrated into its surpassing and if this surpassing has no limits
than those which the subjects assigns himself". This direction
in her ethic seems closer to Nietzsche. This she tries to counter with
the suggestion that Nietzsche is a solipsist and not a true existentialist.
Then she says that another surpassing she wants is of
subjectivity . What then is her aim except a collective universal
version of a will to power. A will to power with accidental conflicts
along the way and with the best interest of humanity at heart - but to
where is it going? To nowhere would be her only answer, except to
acquire more collective power.
If she stated her ethic this clearly it could be easily dismissed, but now
we come back full circle to her apt choice of title,
The Ethics of Ambiguity . Perhaps in addition to it being a
signification of a contingent ethic, it is also a signification of
a book that offers a seeker of ethics a process that is analogous to
her ethic. The book is ambiguous in its goal because she does not want
the reader to become engulfed in it, or in any other goal.
But this is
being too charitable to her ethic. She even says, "...mystification
is one of the forms of oppression...". The alternative
interpretation is, that if she new what the goal of her ethic was,
she would realize that she had engulfed herself in it by writing the
book - this implies that she did not know her goal - but this point
must be facetiousness. The issue is that while anything can form the
basis of an ethical system, her ethical parameters are so full of mind
bending logic that it would seem that one must be predisposed to her
ethic to be convinced by it.
Conversely, her ethic is obvious and
obscure at the same time and her paradoxes may be only equivocations
attempting to reach some middle ground. But it would be too generous
to fill in the blanks for her in order to make it work. Take this paradox for example, "Man
is free; but he finds his law in his very freedom". We can fill
in the blanks by perceiving a middle ground where a person must conform
to society and to personal limitations. Or we can fill in another kind
of middle ground. But when we fill it in for her, which her ambiguity
allows, she is able to acquire much more agreement with her readers
than if she had been clear. Her approach persuades better because of
its ambiguity. Whether it is intentional or not, for all her clarity, she is definitely
guilty of mystification.
Her ethic of being good is so narrow in practice that it might be
impossible to avoid all of her pitfalls, like being too serious, nihilistic,
adventurous or passionate. To be her version of a good person requires
so much work that the goal of collective power might seem too bare a
pursuit to persuade one to bother to undertake it. Her ambiguity allows
some room in which to enter, but this loose way of interpreting her
might not have met with her approval.
However, if one returns to the
most important question - why do we need an ethic? - she fails straight
away. She must have an answer to this question, like all ethical
proponents must. But it must be without begging the question, or one needs not take
the ethic seriously. Unfortunately throughout this brilliantly rendered
work she doesn't answer it sufficiently.
GRH
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