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1943-1949Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Sartre and de Beauvoir Build an Existentialist Ethics of Freedom

Existence precedes essence, and no one is born a woman, on Sartre and de Beauvoir's account, one becomes one

On the timeline · around 1943-1949 · Modern PhilosophyModern PhilosophySartre and de Beauvoir Build an Existentialist Ethics of Freedom192019301940195019601970

Quick facts

Sartre's dates
1905-1980
de Beauvoir's dates
1908-1986
Being and Nothingness published
1943
The Second Sex published
1949

What happened

Jean-Paul Sartre, born in 1905, published Being and Nothingness in 1943, arguing that for human beings existence precedes essence, meaning people are not born with a fixed nature to fulfill but must create their own meaning through free choices, a freedom Sartre described as inescapable: people are condemned to be free, bearing full responsibility and anguish for their situation. Sartre illustrated the alternative, bad faith, through the example of a waiter who plays at being a waiter as though it were a fixed identity rather than a role he has chosen. Simone de Beauvoir, born in 1908, published The Second Sex in 1949, applying and extending existentialist method to argue that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman, meaning femininity is a social and historical construction rather than a biological destiny, and developing an ethics in which willing one's own freedom requires willing the freedom of others as well.

Why it matters

Sartre's existentialism and de Beauvoir's feminist extension of it gave mid-20th-century philosophy its most publicly influential account of human freedom and responsibility, and The Second Sex became a founding text of second-wave feminist theory, arguing that categories long treated as natural, like womanhood, are in fact produced by history and society.

How we know

Being and Nothingness and The Second Sex survive in their original 1943 and 1949 French editions and have been continuously translated and studied since publication; Sartre and de Beauvoir's decades-long intellectual partnership and mutual influence are documented in their extensive published correspondence and memoirs.

Sources

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