Man’s failure and self-distance are preconditions for any ethics
Evidence
It is true. But it is also true that the most optimistic ethics have all begun by emphasizing the element of failure involved in the condition of man; without failure, no ethics; for a being who, from the very start, would be an exact co-incidence with himself, in a perfect plenitude, the notion of having-to-be would have no meaning. One does not offer an ethics to a God. It is impossible to propose any to man if one defines him as nature, as something given. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 5
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- APHORISMS: “One does not offer an ethics to a God” — a durable line of life-wisdom about why imperfection enables rather than blocks moral life.
Related
- Ethics is only possible given a gap between oneself and oneself (similarity 0.89)