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# Why Does Beauvoir Reject the Desire to Be in The Ethics of Ambiguity?
- URL: https://philocrux.com/answers/beauvoir-rejection-desire-to-be-ethics-of-ambiguity/
- Published: 2026-09-26T22:25:36.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-26T22:25:36.000Z
- Description: Simone de Beauvoir rejects the desire to be because it is a metaphysical flight from the human condition of ambiguity. The desire to be seeks to become a fixed, self-identical thing—a God—thereby escaping the tension between facticity and transcendence. This flight inevitably leads to bad
- Author: Philosopheasy
- Tags: Answers

Beauvoir wrote *The Ethics of Ambiguity* in the rubble of postwar Paris, where the temptation to absolutize—whether in politics or metaphysics—had just produced catastrophe. Her response was not a system but a refusal: a refusal to let the desire for being smother the messy, contingent work of existing. 6 mins read. 

In *The Ethics of Ambiguity* (1947), Simone de Beauvoir rejects the **desire to be** because it is a flight from the human condition. We are not pure consciousness (like Sartre's for-itself) nor pure thing (like the in-itself); we are ambiguous—both at once. The desire to be is the yearning to collapse that tension into a single, fixed identity: to become God, a pure in-itself-for-itself. Beauvoir argues this desire is not merely futile; it is ethically corrosive. It generates bad faith, justifies oppression, and turns freedom into a burden to be escaped rather than a responsibility to be assumed.

Her critique is not a dismissal of longing. It is a diagnosis of what happens when longing forgets its own ground. The desire to be always seeks to *be* something—a role, a reputation, a cause, a lover—without acknowledging that human existence is a perpetual *becoming* that can never be completed. To desire being is to desire the end of freedom. And for Beauvoir, that desire is the root of much political and personal violence.

### The metaphysical trap of becoming God

Beauvoir inherits the language of Hegel and Sartre but bends it toward a concrete ethics. The human being is a *pour-soi* (for-itself) that is also a *en-soi* (in-itself)—a body, a past, a social situation. The desire to be is the impossible wish to be both fully conscious and fully thing-like, to possess the solidity of a stone while retaining the transparency of consciousness. This is the desire to be God.

Because this desire can never be satisfied, it perpetuates a cycle of disappointment and renewed striving. The person who seeks to be a *great man*, a *devoted mother*, a *revolutionary*, or a *perfect partner* treats these identities as final destinations. But existence is a movement of transcendence—always projecting beyond what one currently is. To fix oneself is to die existentially, even while the body continues.

> The modern twist is algorithmic: we curate a profile that aspires to be a finished self, a brand, a consistent narrative. The feed rewards the appearance of being, not the risk of becoming. Beauvoir would recognize this as a digital version of the desire to be—a flight from the ambiguity that makes genuine connection possible.

### Why every desire to be is a desire to oppress

The ethical stakes sharpen when the desire to be turns toward others. If I need to be something absolutely, I require others to confirm that identity. They must recognize me as the wise one, the victim, the savior, the authority. When they refuse, they threaten my being. Thus the desire to be generates a demand for submission. Beauvoir shows that the oppressor is often someone fleeing their own ambiguity: by reducing others to objects, the oppressor attempts to secure a fixed self.

This is why her ethics refuses any politics of purity. The revolutionary who seeks to *be* the pure revolutionary will purge dissenters. The lover who seeks to *be* the perfect romantic will suffocate the beloved. The desire to be always seeks a final solution to the problem of existence—and final solutions have a body count.

| Desire to Be                        | Existential Ambiguity              |
| ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| Seeks a fixed, final identity       | Embraces perpetual becoming        |
| Requires others to confirm the self | Recognizes others as free subjects |
| Leads to bad faith and oppression   | Grounds authentic ethical action   |
| Fears contingency and change        | Accepts risk and uncertainty       |

### The ethical alternative: assuming ambiguity

Beauvoir does not leave us in despair. The rejection of the desire to be is the precondition for an ethics of freedom. To assume one's ambiguity is to acknowledge that one is never complete, never identical to oneself, and therefore always capable of action, revision, and solidarity. Freedom is not a property one possesses; it is a movement one enacts. And because that movement is always situated—limited by body, history, and social conditions—the ethical task is to expand the concrete possibilities of freedom for oneself and others.

This is why Beauvoir's ethics is not individualistic. The desire to be isolates; the assumption of ambiguity connects. When I stop trying to be something, I can begin to do something with others. The ethical question is no longer *What am I?* but *What are we doing with our freedom?*

#### Referenced Works & Texts

1. Simone de Beauvoir, *The Ethics of Ambiguity*, Part I: “Ambiguity and Freedom” (1947). Beauvoir’s foundational critique of the desire to be and her account of the ambiguous human condition.
2. Simone de Beauvoir, *The Ethics of Ambiguity*, Part II: “Personal Freedom and Others” (1947). The ethical turn from individual flight to collective responsibility.
3. Jean-Paul Sartre, *Being and Nothingness*, Part I, Chapter 2: “Bad Faith” (1943). The ontological background of the for-itself and the in-itself that Beauvoir reworks.

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