Breht and Alyson explore Simone de Beauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity, a foundational work of existentialist ethics that asks a deceptively difficult question: if there is no God, no predetermined human purpose, and no absolute moral order written into the universe, why shouldn't anything be permitted?
They examine Beauvoir's understanding of ambiguity -- the strange condition of being finite, situated creatures who are nevertheless free, desiring, future-oriented, and responsible for what we make of ourselves. From childhood and bad faith to the sub-man, serious man, nihilist, adventurer, and passionate man, they explore the different ways people flee from or embrace the anxiety of freedom.
Finally, they turn to Beauvoir's challenge to revolutionary politics: how can we struggle seriously against oppression without turning History, the Party, or the Revolution into new absolutes? What responsibilities remain when liberation requires coercion, sacrifice, or violence? And what would it mean to build a revolutionary ethics capable of pursuing collective freedom without losing sight of the dignity and freedom of the people liberation is supposedly for?
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