Northwestern University's Department of Philosophy's Colloquium Series presents Sabina Vaccarino Bremner

 Beauvoir’s Constructivism

I claim that Simone de Beauvoir offers a novel argument for a variant of constructivism that aims to vindicate a relatively strong form of moral objectivity. On my interpretation, Beauvoir holds that, in acting, we simultaneously create and satisfy others’ future needs. She argues that our attempt to do this is what confers value on our projects: without others’ free recognition of their need for what we have produced through our practical activity, we have no reason to value our own agency. But since we can’t anticipate who will need the products of our actions, we can’t value the freedom of a restricted social group; we must value the freedom of all, including those we don’t and may never know. In this way, Beauvoir grounds her moral universalism in the collective attempt to build a social world that affords ever greater possibilities to others. This offers a new vindication of a social concept of agency that improves on the traditional strategy of reciprocal recognition in several crucial respects.

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