The Bonds of Freedom: Simone de Beauvoir’s Existentialist Ethics [Book Review]

In this book, Kristana Arp seeks to establish a new understanding of the ethical thought of Simone de Beauvoir. While placing Beauvoir within the school of existential phenomenology, Arp emphasizes Beauvoir’s unique contribution to existentialist ethics. Her thesis is that Beauvoir’s work moves beyond the ethical thought of other existentialists, particularly beyond that of Jean-Paul Sartre, and seeks to address fundamental problems left open by Sartre’s thinking. “Beauvoir’s breakthrough,” she claims, “is to change existentialism’s focus on one’s own freedom into a focus on the freedom of others”.