University Archives

Maggie Korzeniewski, Biology (class of 2029); Dr. Kieran Aarons, Department of Philosophy (research mentor)

ABSTRACT: What if being free was something you could fail at? What if this failure could take various forms?  Which form of failure best describes your life? What would it mean to become genuinely free? These are the questions that French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir poses in her 1947 work, The Ethics of Ambiguity. In this poster, we lay out Beauvoir’s typology of ethically failed human beings, inviting audience members to locate themselves in one or many of Beauvoir’s memorable character types or personae (the “subhuman,” the “serious man,” the “nihilist,” the “adventurer,” etc.). We aim to provoke passers-by to engage in ethical reflection upon their own outlook on life, and to provide them with an amusing yet thoughtful and rigorous schema for doing so. In this way, we seek to bring to Beauvoir’s famous treatise on ethics down to Earth and place its key insights before the UDM community.