Abstract

Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity suggests that if existentialism is vulnerable to accusations of solipsism and nihilism, this is because Sartre failed to approach ambiguity from the proper angle. Of all the forms of ambiguity described in this text, the most troubling conjoins human separateness with connection. From the essays of the 1940s to her lectures on literature during the 1960s, Beauvoir struggles to articulate the ethics of this form of ambiguity. Her refusal to deny the “anti‐social” aspect of existence finds echoes in today's tensions between feminists and queer theorists.