The Ethics Of Ambiguity

Unlike existentialists, the serious man does not embrace paradox in the world and instead believes in absolute values: “The thing that matters to the serious man is not so much the nature of the object which he prefers to himself, but rather the fact of being able to lose himself in it” (50). Examples of the serious man from everyday life include those who blindly subscribe to religious or political beliefs. 

De Beauvoir sees nihilism as a “radical disorder” where man “decides to be nothing” (56). In terms of freedom, the nihilist rids “themselves of the anxiety of their freedom by denying the world and themselves” (57). De Beauvoir also defines the nihilist in terms of seriousness, as well: “Nihilism is disappointed seriousness which has turned [its] back upon itself” (57).

The adventurer “likes action for its own sake,” and “finds joy in spreading through the world a freedom which remains indifferent to its content” (62). Engrossing himself in action regardless of the end goal, the adventurer is “very close to a genuinely moral attitude” (63).  

The passionate man “seeks possession…to attain being” (69). De Beauvoir warns that “if the object of the passionate man’s affection “concerns the world in general, this tyranny becomes fanaticism” (71). The passionate man, under the right circumstance, can become a tyrannical dictator.

With “ambiguity at the heart” of this archetype, the independent man seems closest to the existential ideal. The independent man “understands, dominates, and rejects, in the name of total truth, the necessarily partial truths which every human engagement discloses” (74).