The contribution of Simone de Beauvoir to the development of contemporary philosophy and Western culture as a whole could hardly be overlooked. Primarily, her most recognizable work is The Second Sex essay, which is considered to be one of the central texts of the feminist movement. However, she contributed to the modern ethics and philosophy by consistently elaborating on her existentialist views. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the concept of the sub-man and to discuss the Beauvoir’s perspective on such way of living.
First of all, it is important to overview the idea of freedom, as it is presented in Beauvoir’s philosophy. According to Levy, one of the principal themes, on which the philosopher dwells upon, is the correlation between childhood experiences and the concept of human freedom (140). One of the primary claims, which are made regarding the acquisition of freedom, is that children are “unaware of the anguish of freedom”, they “do not reflect on their ontological freedom in order to deny it”, and thus they are not able to attain the freedom’s highest form, which is moral freedom (Levy 147). In the context of this reasoning, Beauvoir proposes the paradigm of archetypes, which represent distinct stages of understanding and executing moral freedom: “sub-man, serious man, nihilist, and adventurer” (Levy 147).
It is apparent that the philosopher connects the development of this personality type to childhood. Beauvoir defines the sub-man as a human being, who exists without conscious efforts to understand the world around him or her: “they have eyes and ears, but from their childhood on they make themselves blind and deaf, without love and without desire” (qtd. in Kline and Knight-Abowitz). As Levy notices, children are not able to distinguish between moral categories due to their lack of understanding (147); however, some of them continue to avoid making moral decisions even when they grow up. One of the primary characteristics of the sub-man is the individual’s indifference to finding a meaning of existence (Kline and Knight-Abowitz). It should also be noted that such people tend to be inconsistent with their plans and goals in general.
On a larger scale, it is possible to observe that the sub-man does not employ his or her freedom to nearly any extent. Furthermore, the sub-man does not even ponder on the concept of freedom and its significance for human life. Instead, another characteristic, which is pointed out by Beauvoir, substitutes the necessity for moral decision-making for such individuals: it is the obedience to the social norms and authorities, which are deeply rooted in the society (Kline and Knight-Abowitz). Beauvoir argues that sub-men are capable of becoming good teachers because they unconsciously follow the conventional traditions, and thus they can reproduce the same results over and over (Kline and Knight-Abowitz). Based on the retrieved information, an observation of Beauvoir’s attitude toward the sub-man could be made.
It is apparent that the philosopher does not consider this archetype as a suitable way of living. It is possible to notice that Beauvoir places the sub-man as the lowest element in her paradigm. Therefore, Existentialism’s primary claim, which is shared nearly by every philosopher of this movement at least to some degree, is that a human being is not born as an individual. A person can become the human in the genuine sense of this word only when responding to situations of existential crises. Therefore, it should be concluded the archetype of the sub-man, as it described by Beauvoir, does not comply with the existentialism’s notion of human to any extent.
Works Cited
Kline, Kip, and Kathleen Knight-Abowitz. “Imagining Ourselves in the Future: Toward an Existential Ethics for Teachers in the Accountability Era.” Philosophy of Education, 2015, pp. 162-170. Web.
Levy, Lior. “Thinking with Beauvoir on the Freedom of the Child.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, vol. 31, no. 1, 2016, pp. 140-155.