In The Prime of Life, Simone de Beauvoir identifies 1943 as the beginning of what she calls the moral period of her literary career.1 This is the year Jean Grenier asked her to contribute something to an anthology he was editing. Understanding that he was interested in essays that reflected contemporary ideological trends and that he identified her as having something to contribute as an existentialist, Beauvoir was at first reluctant. She did not think she was qualified to write an existential philosophical essay. Sartre encouraged her to accept, and upon reflection, she says, she realized that she had something more to say about problems she had recently tackled in The Blood of Others. Beauvoir also determined that writing this essay would give her the chance to reconcile Sartre’s views of freedom with her distinct ideas, “upheld against him in various conversations” (434), concerning the significance of the situation. The text of Pyrrhus and Cineas seems almost to have written itself. Perhaps we should not be surprised that it was finished in three months (July 1943), for Beauvoir tells us that the dialogue between Pyrrhus and Cineas is very much like the conversation she had with herself (recorded in her private diary) on her twentieth birthday (435).
Written during the Nazi occupation, Pyrrhus and Cineas was published in September 1944, after the liberation. Looking back, in volume 1 of Force of Circumstance, Simone de Beauvoir speaks of her pleasure in writing Pyrrhus and Cineas. She describes herself as both surprised and delighted with its reception in postwar France. However, Beauvoir does not give the text high intellectual marks. Finding it too abstract, she attributes its success to a French public starved for philosophy.
The fate of Pyrrhus and Cineas echoes Beauvoir’s judgment. It is a largely neglected work. Unlike The Ethics of Ambiguity, which appeared in English shortly after its publication in France, Pyrrhus and Cineas was not deemed worthy of an English edition until now, more than fifty years after its original publication. This translation should change all that. It comes at an auspicious moment in Beauvoir studies: a moment when Beauvoir’s refusal to identify herself as a philosopher in her own right is itself refused; a moment when her work is being studied for its unique insights and contributions to philosophical and feminist thought; a moment when the questions of violence and justice, crucial issues in Pyrrhus and Cineas, are pressing political and ethical concerns.
Once we take Beauvoir as a serious philosopher, we cannot ignore Pyrrhus and Cineas. It addresses critical, fundamental ethical and political issues: What are the criteria of ethical action? How can I distinguish ethical from unethical political projects? What are the principles of ethical relationships? Can violence ever be justified? It examines these questions from an existential-phenomenological perspective. Beginning from the situation of the concrete existing individual, it provides an analysis of our human condition that takes account of our unique and particular subjectivity, our embeddedness in the world, and our essential relatedness to each other. Though not feminist in any identifiable sense, Pyrrhus and Cineas directs us to the compelling feminist question, Under what conditions, if any, may I speak for/in the name of another?
Reading Pyrrhus and Cineas today, it is difficult to come to it with fresh eyes. Knowing that the author of this text is also the author of The Second Sex, we are hard pressed to read Pyrrhus and Cineas for what it was then, the writing of a largely unknown author, rather than for what it is now, the early work of Simone de Beauvoir, a woman identified as one of the most important authors of the twentieth century. Reading Pyrrhus and Cineas with an eye toward The Second Sex, we cannot help but look for the ways in which concepts fully operative in the later, more famous text are already fully in play here, visible in their absence, or present in seedling form.
Reading in this way we will look for what has remained constant in Beauvoir’s thought and for what has changed. We will look for the ways in which ideas pursued in Pyrrhus and Cineas are transformed, pushed in unexpected directions, abandoned or embraced in The Second Sex. We will, in short, look for the continuities and discontinuities in Beauvoir’s thinking and methods. In pursuing a reading of this sort we will be assuming a certain constancy in Beauvoir’s intellectual project; for even if we speak of discontinuities, we measure these against a certain sense of an identifiable intellectual trajectory. This type of reading, a reading that might be called historical-philosophical, is valuable for tracing the lines of Beauvoir’s thought. Ironically, however, it goes against a central thesis of Pyrrhus and Cineas—the thesis that there is no progress, continuity, or steady development in the life of either the individual or the species.
This thesis suggests another approach to the text, one that could be called phenomenological-philosophical. Here we would bracket what we now know about Beauvoir to take up the text for itself and in its relationship to the horizon of its times. This horizon would be both political-existential and intellectual-existential. Addressing the political-existential horizon, we would delineate the situation of occupied France and postwar France. We would look at the ways in which that situation provoked the questions of Pyrrhus and Cineas and at the ways in which the analyses of Pyrrhus and Cineas spoke to the lived realities of these wartime circumstances and their aftermath. Addressing the intellectual-existential horizon, we would look at the ways in which Beauvoir took up ideas and positions circulating in the philosophical field of her era. Here Beauvoir herself is a reliable guide. She refers us to Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Descartes among others, as she situates herself among those influencing her thinking. The value of reading Pyrrhus and Cineas in this way is that we capture its originality and freshness. By not reading it as an immature text, or as a mere precursor to The Second Sex, we discover the ways in which it stands on its own, the ways in which the arguments do or do not work per se, and the ways in which Beauvoir was creating a unique philosophical style and space that she could call her own.
Though Pyrrhus and Cineas is a text that is focused on ethical and political questions, it begins in a surprisingly apolitical and amoral way. Instead of opening with a distinctly ethical or political issue, or with an analysis of the principles and precepts of justice or morality, it begins with a staged conversation between Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, born in 318 B.C.E., and Cineas, his adviser. They are discussing Pyrrhus’s plan to conquer the world. The issue between them does not concern the morality or justice of this particular action but the rationality of action itself. Agreeing that once the conquest is completed Pyrrhus will retire to his home, Cineas protests. If at the end of all this activity Pyrrhus will return to where he is now, why not just stay put? Action, Cineas concludes, is always irrational, ultimately unproductive, and essentially futile. Our goals are never realized. We are never satisfied.
Between the cynic, Cineas, and the king, Pyrrhus, Beauvoir aligns herself with Pyrrhus. Her decision does not concern the details of the king’s project. It concerns the ontological truth of his position: to be human is to act. The cynic has reason on his side: there are neither absolute ends of, nor guaranteed justifications for, our projects. From a rational point of view, action is perverse. From an existential point of view, however, it is inevitable. We cannot not act. We must therefore analyze the reality of this fact of our condition.
The opening dialogue of Pyrrhus and Cineas is no mere theatrical device. The man of action must account for himself before the tribunal of reason. Beauvoir will be his advocate. Her advocacy appeals to the logical impossibility of establishing an absolute justification of/for action (thereby taking the argument directly to the cynic) and to the existential reality of our particularity (thereby marking her philosophical territory). This structure of Pyrrhus and Cineas reflects Beauvoir’s existential commitments. She will not take up the ethical question, How ought I act? until she answers the existential question, Why act? Within the context of Pyrrhus and Cineas the matter of ethical action cannot be separated from the matter of action itself; for it is within the context of determining the distinct structures of human activity that Beauvoir discovers the parameters of moral and just action.
Part 1 of Pyrrhus and Cineas is addressed to the particular, finite, existing individual. Addressing this individual, Beauvoir determines that spontaneity, the drive to engage the world and make it ours, is the truth of our humanity. Using Candide’s “cultivate your garden” as her foil, Beauvoir sets the scene for part 1. Candide does not urge me to cultivate any garden. The injunction directs me to cultivate my own garden. In this it speaks a certain truth and raises basic questions. The truth concerns the basic structure of action. I take up projects in the world to make the world mine, to make myself essential. This truth, however, raises unsettling questions: Where is my garden? What is it? How do I mark the boundaries between my garden and yours? Can there be such a thing as our garden? What goals ought I set for this garden? What hopes may I have for it?
These questions direct us to the phenomenon of situated freedom. A garden becomes my garden through my free choice. This choice, however, is not arbitrary. It is factually conditioned by my past and present circumstances and ontologically conditioned by the structures of time and transcendence. When Beauvoir identifies us with freedom, she is not using the term to designate the process by which we decide to do one thing rather than another. She is using it to designate the transcending nature of our being. As human I am perpetually transcending myself toward a yet to be defined future in which I seek to establish myself in my concrete particularity. I am a way of being that makes myself be by reaching beyond myself toward something other than myself. I am a transcending transcendence, a going beyond without end. Today’s tomorrow becomes a yesterday. A new future calls me to new ends.
Existential freedom as structured by time renders my identity unstable. As structured by finitude this freedom is the source of my insatiability. Each goal reached satisfies me insofar as it constitutes the fulfillment of a particular project. Given the necessary particularity of every project, however, I soon become dissatisfied. The reached goal is limited. Something else is required. I take up a new project. It is a never ending story. As finite I necessarily fail to bring closure to myself or my projects. This inevitable failure lies at the heart of the meaning of our condition as finite and existentially free beings. Any action that calls its goal an ultimate end in itself must be rejected as antihuman. Today’s utopian vision is tomorrow’s reign of terror.
Given these existential commitments, we expect Beauvoir to reject God as a possible source of moral justification. We might not, however, expect her to reject the idea of humanity as a proper object of our ethical and political projects; but the idea of humanity, when subjected to the logic of finitude, shares the fate of the idea of God. Distinguishing what she calls the cult of humanity from the truth of the human, Beauvoir rejects the idea of a universal human identity, goal, or good. As particular existing human beings we form our singular identities by choosing particular goals and goods. Our choices, by affirming some things and people, inevitably reject others. Humanity as a whole cannot be embraced.
As a particular existing individual I am not an individuated particular who shares a common destiny with others of my species. I am an isolated particular separated by/in my freedom from the freedom of others. This separateness is the source of conflict, which Beauvoir finds inevitable, and solidarity, which Beauvoir finds necessary. The argument from finitude to separateness to conflict seems pretty straightforward. The argument from finitude to separateness to solidarity seems counterintuitive. It depends on acknowledging our ambiguous condition as both a subject for the world and an object in it. As a subject for the world, my actions create the realities of the world. These realities however, escape me. They cease to be mine as soon as they come into existence. They become objects in, conditions of, the world and those who inhabit it. As objects in the world, my projects may or may not be taken up by others. The fate of my desire depends on the other. If no one adopts my goals, they vanish. Without the support of others my projects come to nothing.
These conflicting dimensions of intersubjective life reflect the ambiguity of our humanness (I am always both subject and object) and establish the problematic of ethics and politics. Given that others exist for me as objects in the world whose instrumentality is necessary for the success of my projects, how can I get them to support my cause without violating their status as human subjects who, like me, perpetually escape their worldly objective givenness? Kant is useless here. Our ambiguity cannot be subsumed by the categorical imperative. The other is never a pure subject. It is not necessarily immoral to see the other as a means to my ends. It may be immoral to treat the other as an end in itself. In taking up the ethical problem from the site of the ethical act (the site of the existing individual), Beauvoir determines that abstract ethical formulas are unhelpful at best and destructive at worst.
Moving from the ontological truth: I am a finite freedom whose endings are always and necessarily beginnings; Pyrrhus and Cineas raises the existential questions, How can I desire to be what I am? How can I live my finitude with passion? These questions are posed in order to turn to the moral and political issues, What actions express the truth and passion of our condition? How can I act in such a way as to create the conditions that sustain and support the humanity of human beings? Part 1 concludes with the observation that “[a] man alone in the world would be paralyzed by . . . the vanity of all his goals. He would undoubtedly not be able to stand living. But man is not alone in the world.” Part 2 opens by taking up the ethical questions raised by our communal existence. What is my relation to the other? What can I expect from the other? What obligations do I have toward the other?
The sections of part 2, headed “Others,” “Devotion,” “Communication,” and “Action,” pursue the logic of transcendence, singularity, and finitude to distinguish immoral attention to false idols/ideals from an ethical attentiveness to the singular other and the forever elusive goal of our desire. The analysis is dominated by the problem created by Beauvoir’s insistence on the radical nature of our freedom. According to Beauvoir, the other, as free, is immune to my power. Whatever we do, if as masters we exploit slaves, or as executioners we hang murderers, we cannot violate others in the inner depths of their free subjectivity. Substituting the inner-outer difference for the Cartesian mind-body distinction, Beauvoir argues that we can never directly touch others in the heart of their freedom. Our relationships are either superficial, engaging only the outer surface of each other’s being, or mediated through our common commitment to a shared goal or value. As free we are saved from the dangers of intimacy.
This line of argument would seem to lead either to benign Stoic conclusions of mutual indifference or to finding tyrants and reigns of terror no threat to individual freedom. Beauvoir does not let it drift in these directions. Instead she uses the inner-outer distinction, and the idea that I need others to take up my projects if those projects are to have a future, to introduce the ideas of the appeal and risk. Developing the concept of freedom as transcendence, Beauvoir identifies the essence of freedom as the uncertainty and risk of our actions. She writes: “To be free is to throw oneself into the world without weighing the consequences or stakes; it is to define any stake or any step oneself.” To be free is to be radically contingent. As free, I bring value and meaning to a world without value and meaning of its own. I cannot, however, support these values alone. They will find a home in the world only if others embrace them; only if I persuade others to make my values theirs.
As radically free, I need the other. I need to be able to appeal to others to join me in my projects. Here lies the knot of the ethical problem: How can I, a radically free being who is existentially severed from all other human freedoms, transcend the isolations of freedom to create a community of allies? Given the necessity of appealing to another’s freedom, under what conditions is an appeal possible?
In answering these questions Beauvoir turns the inner-outer distinction to her advantage as she develops the concept of situated freedom. Though I can neither act for another nor directly influence another’s freedom, I must, Beauvoir argues, accept responsibility for the fact that my actions produce the conditions within which the other acts. However irrelevant my conduct may be for the other’s inner freedom, it concerns mine. I am, Beauvoir writes, “the face” of the other’s misery. “I am the facticity of his situation.” Pursuing this difference between my power to effect the other’s freedom and my responsibility for the other’s situation, and exploring the conditions under which my appeal to the other can/will be heard, Beauvoir determines that there are two conditions of the appeal. First, I must be allowed to call to the other and must struggle against those who would silence me. Second, there must be others who can respond to my call. The first condition is political-civic. The second is political-material. Only equals, Beauvoir argues, can hear or respond to my call. Only those who are not consumed by the struggle for survival, only those who exist in the material conditions of freedom, health, leisure, and security, can become my allies in the struggle against injustice. The first rule of justice, therefore, is to work for a world where the civic and material conditions of the appeal are secured.
Violence is not ruled out. Given that Beauvoir has argued that we can never reach others in the depths of their freedom, she cannot call violence evil. She does not, however, endorse it. She does not accept the proposition that the ends justify the means. Neither does she envision a future without conflict. The logic of her ethics of particularity determines that violence is inevitable. The fact that we are differently situated and engage in the work of transcendence from different historical, economic, sexed, and race positions ensures that some of us will always be an obstacle to another’s freedom. We are, Beauvoir writes, “condemned to violence.” As neither evil nor avoidable, violence, Beauvoir argues, is “the mark of a failure that nothing can offset.” It is the tragedy of the human condition.
Thus the argument ends on an uneasy note. As ethical we are obliged to work for the conditions of material and political equality. In calling on others to take up our projects and give our projects a future, we are precluded from forcing others to become our allies. We are enjoined to appeal to their freedom. Where persuasion fails, however, we are permitted the recourse to violence. The ambiguity of our being as subjects of and objects in the world is lived in this dilemma of violence and justice. Becoming lucid about the meaning of freedom, we learn to live our freedom by accepting its finitude and contingency, its risks and its failures.
And so we come full circle. Having established in part 1 that the logic of passivity, however compelling, must submit to the facticity of transcendence and freedom, Beauvoir concludes in part 2 that the logic of the appeal must acknowledge the facticity of violence. In each case the clean lines of deductive reason must defer to the messy contingencies of existence. The abstract Cartesian method and the universal optimistic Hegelian dialectic are rejected. In their place, Beauvoir develops a method of reflective description that appeals to concrete examples and focuses on the particulars of the existential singular to delineate the paradigms and ambiguities of the ethical injunctions of our existential freedom.
The meaning of our situated freedom, the material conditions of justice, the possibilities of the appeal, and the risks of violence are issues that will concern Beauvoir throughout her life. In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1944) she returns to the questions of violence and freedom. In All Men Are Mortal (1946) she plays with the idea of finitude to fully explode the folly of Cineas’s injunction to not act. In The Second Sex she pierces the democratic myths of liberty, equality, and fraternity by exposing the violence that separates women from the possibilities of their existential freedom. More phenomenological in their attention to our embodiment, these works abandon the inner-outer split of Pyrrhus and Cineas, speak of the ways in which our freedoms touch each other, reconsider the matrix of violence and evil, and provide more nuanced accounts of the material conditions of the possibility of freedom.
With this fluid and crisp translation of Pyrrhus and Cineas we can determine whether or not Beauvoir’s work is woven of one cloth. We can determine whether the trajectory of her thought mutes the tragedy of the human condition so starkly delineated here, or whether it finds credible alternatives to the dilemmas depicted in Pyrrhus and Cineas. In asking the question, What can we hope? Pyrrhus and Cineas provides a chilling answer. It may be that Beauvoir’s later works are propelled by this question and the desire to answer it in ways that bring us closer to the possibilities of justice while remaining cognizant of the risks of freedom and the dangers of utopian dreams.
1. The Prime of Life, trans. Peter Green, intro. Toril Moi (New York: Paragon, 1992), 433; hereafter, all page numbers given parenthetically in this introduction refer to this text unless otherwise indicated.