Philosophy 152 Philosophy of Human Nature Darwall Fall 1996 DE BEAUVOIR I I We find many of the same existentialist themes we encountered in Sartre in De Beauvoir. Quite differently from Sartre, however, De Beauvoir fits these ideas into an account of the human life cycle. II She begins with a description of childhood as a complicated mix of a "given", "serious" world in which the child is "happily irresponsible." The child believes in the "being" of his parents and the existence of good and evil. But De Beauvoir tells us that the child too has a being, and that he plays at being. What are we to make of all this, and of De Beauvoir's claim that the child "knows that nothing can every happen through him"? Note the importance of the idea of responsibility here. III This "infantile world" can also characterize social experience of other groups, e.g., slaves, and women. Children have no alternative to this world because they can form no conception of it as anything but given. When, however, alternative possibilities can be conceived, this puts the "infantilized" person into a dilemma, what to do? Be resigned or rebel? IV People who are not actively infantilized by others may, however, refuse to accept their freedom. One such kind of person is what De Beauvoir calls "sub-men" They deny their subjectivity, substituting some "label" or submerging themselves in some group. Analyze: "He is afraid of engaging himself in a project . . . violence." (339) "In lynching, in pogroms . . . are recruited from among the sub- men." (339) Note here the connection De Beauvoir makes between recognizing one's subjectivity and recognizing the subjectivity of others. V De Beauvoir's next category is the "serious man". What exactly is the difference between this person and the sub-man? Is the serious man a sub-man who has made a stable identification with a label? VI Nihilism is the result of "disappointed seriousness". The nihilist tries to live in the conviction that nothing has value (including his own freedom). VII Unlike the adventurer, who affirms the value of his free choice "but remains indifferent to the content" of what he chooses, the passionate person takes the object of his own enthusiasms to have an absolute value, "not, like the serious man, as a thing detached from himself, but as a thing disclosed by his subjectivity." (345) The passionate man's failing is that he ignores the ultimately subjective source of his objective values. And, in so doing, he may ignore (and trampel upon) the subjectivity of others. The fully free person, however, recognizes each person's subjectivity: "Only the freedom of others keep each one of us from hardening in the absurdity of facticity." (347) "To will oneself free is also to will others free." (348)