Simone de Beauvoir | The Ethics of Ambiguity | Chapter 1: Ambiguity and Freedom

In this lecture, we examine the first chapter of existentialist and feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir's "The Ethics of Ambiguity". This chapter focuses on reconciling the groundlessness of human values and the human condition (ambiguity) with an ethical theory grounded on freely willed and consistent ethical actions. Enjoy!
Music is Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No, 15 mvt II • Symphony No. 15 in A M...
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/ @gavinyoung-philosophy

[@dhaktizero4406]

you play some good philosophy ping pong here
the paddles are not all right
and not all wrong
just perfectly balanced
for bouncing that light ball of wit
against mad buggers walls
it will drive them bonkers
excellent

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

Thanks for the kind words and the playful as ever poems. They light up my comments section :)

[@jordanbell7132]

your vids are next level, are you doing anything special to put these videos out at such speed ?

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

Just lots of reading and careful annotation to make commentary more streamlined. Thank you for the kind words!

[@zb3620]

😮😮

[@gilbertgonzales915]

You come out the gate prejudice?

[@jays5002]

Beauvoir was NOT cooking

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

Agreed…

[@horsymandias-ur]

Have you ever read any Iris Murdoch?

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

I have not

[@horsymandias-ur]

Perhaps you cannot will finding this particular flavor of ice cream pleasurable, but nonetheless you ought to. Womp womp

[@KCapp]

This one sounds like latent misogyny to me

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

How so? From her or myself?

[@horsymandias-ur]

Existentialists have always struck me as unjustifiably reductionist. Fricking Plato was dividing up the soul with qualitatively different concerns/motive powers over 2000 years ago; the tyrant was precisely the one who was slave to the lowest desires, as though they come as a conqueror from without. Making the unitary so-called “will” the only item of causal explanation in human affairs is silly af

[@gavinyoung-philosophy]

Yeah, well I think the far more silly aspect is the separation of said “will” from the world; it’s individualist to the point of solipsism such that, regardless of whether it’s divided or not, we’ve lead to such an abstraction at this point that the difference is moot.