Refusing a genuine possibility of liberation is a moral fault.

Evidence

The negro slave of the eighteenth century, the Mohammedan woman enclosed in a harem have no instrument, be it in thought or by astonishment or anger, which permits them to attack the civilization which oppresses them. Their behavior is defined and can be judged only within this given situation, and it is possible that in this situation, limited like every human situation, they realize a perfect assertion of their freedom. But once there appears a possibility of liberation, it is resignation of freedom not to exploit the possibility, a resignation which implies dishonesty and which is a positive fault. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 33

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Defines a boundary between oppressed agents who cannot know their chains (their conduct judged only within the situation) and those who see liberation yet resign it. This is the crucial hinge where Beauvoir locates bad faith as a positive fault, not just ignorance.
• QUESTION: Beauvoir says the harem woman’s freedom is judged only within her situation until a liberation possibility appears — but who decides when a real ‘possibility of liberation’ exists? This criterion seems circular.
• XREF: The ‘resignation of freedom’ once liberation appears maps onto Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and colonial subjects whose moral situation is redefined by an external standard. — connects to: The refusal to give chills the whole self and recoils on the refuser; Refusing to weigh lives against future threats can itself be a moral evasion. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 775