Beauvoir founded her ethics on willing effective freedom for all others

Evidence

Without reciprocal human recognition, our lives lack the means to overcome our individual fi nitude. For it is only when others take up and prolong our projects that the import of our actions may travel on beyond us. Th us, through reciprocal relations of “generosity,” we must seek to move beyond the confl ictual relations of self and other, which Sartre had described in Being and Nothingness. We must will for all others an enlarged capacity to act meaningfully in the actual world— that is a greater degree of eff ective freedom. Here is the claim that makes possible Beauvoir’s move toward ethics and that also integrally links her ethics to radical politics— a linkage that Sartre will begin to explore only some years later in his Notebooks for an Ethics. In choosing my own freedom, I must also choose to extend that of others. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 479

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s Beauvoir-Sartre influence research: Beauvoir’s ethics of generosity as a corrective to Sartre’s conflict-based relational ontology in Being and Nothingness, and her anticipation of his Notebooks for an Ethics. — connects to: Beauvoir’s rebellion against bourgeois femininity shaped her lifelong dedication to freedom — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 365; Beauvoir’s early ethics treats freedom as necessarily directed toward others — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 76; Friendship and generosity constitute the highest ethical human achievement for Beauvoir. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 274 (+5 more)
• ADDENDUM: Beauvoir’s claim that in choosing my own freedom I must extend others’ freedom parallels the sacrifice/stabilization themes of collective obligation, though loosely.

Broader Connections

• Beauvoir holds that individual freedom is realized only through being directed at other existences #expands (0.88) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 659
• Beauvoir holds that ethical freedom is realized through constructive worldly action #expands (0.85) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 615
• Beauvoir’s moral arguments for willing others’ freedom predate Sartre’s #corroborates (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 578
• Beauvoir’s ethical freedom departs from Sartre’s ontological freedom to make morality possible #expands (0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 610
• Beauvoir’s ethic of treating others as freedoms parallels Kant’s humanity formula #qualifies (0.72) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 202