Theory Of Beauvior Feminist Ethics

The feminist movement was popular in Simone de Beauvoir era; Besides, women’s awareness of right was further awakened, so they began to seek more benefits for themselves. The Second Sex about feminist treatise came into being. It analyzed women’s situation and status comprehensively, and put forward a bold assumption "Women are not innate, but formed by nurture." Furthermore, it argued that women were not independent historical subject, but only relative existence during the history of human society. In such cases, Beauvoir introduced two other ethics books Pilu Si and Qi Niras, and moral ambiguity. In the two books, she expressed her expectation about men and women. She thought that "Admitting others frankly, and treating each other as subject "is the best way to develop harmonious relationship between men and women. Thus it broke the ethics that women were created by men in the traditional patriarchal society, and restored the absolutely lofty position of moral freedom in human existence. For this ethical ideal, Beauvoir has a series of theoretical interpretation, and it was also proved by her other works. In addition, de Beauvoir’s "contract" type of "new marital relationship" with her husband Sartre is the hands-on example about ethical ideal. In this paper, I will explore the ethics on women through the analysis in the novels of Simone de Beauvoir.In her view of feminist ethics, Beauvoir thought that we should treat moral freedom as the goal of human existence. While the view of traditional ethics was based on the patriarchal society, and it has bound the moral freedom of women. Therefore, Beauvoir expected to establish a new moral principle to replace the traditional one. This was based on Sartre’s existentialism, guided by Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, and combined with the views of Marxist materialism. Her ambiguous thoughts of ethic included three aspects. Firstly, she criticized female "absolute Other" in the patriarchal society; Secondly, she hoped that women could be self-awakening, and seek "the existence of desire"; Thirdly, women were able to go to the freedom, and build a harmonious gender ethics with men. At the same time, the characters in Beauvoir’s series of short stories can be divided into three categories corresponding to the concept of ethics. The first kind of women lost their independence, subjectivity, and transcendence, but fell into the "inner nature" under the traditional ethics which is represented by Monique and Boer. They gradually learnt to adapt to their living conditions, and closed themselves in a stagnant and repetitive world. At last, they existed as "absolute otherness"; The second kind of women who sought the sense of self-independence were based on Francoise and Laurence.Because the awakening women gradually found themselves are subjects, they required the initiative and freedom. While there was a contradiction. The men asked the women to admit they were passive objects, so women began to seek their own liberation. During the process, the women of the works found that it was difficult for them to achieve freedom and independence by their own, because the true freedom needed to be recognized. As a result, a harmonious and vague ethical point of view came into being. And this is the third kind of women represented by Helen. The woman can get on well with the man. And this kind conforms to the type of Beauvoir’s ambiguous ethical morality.