The woman above is Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir is a French feminist and existentialist.
Existentialism is the analysis of the individual, and the plight of assuming
responsibility for act of free will without knowing for certain what is right and what is wrong.
She has impacted philosophy greatly with her book The Ethics of Ambiguity. Book states that
there is no absolute moral good but instead the freedom of choice. Freedom is the end-for-itself
and life is about recognizing and exercising that freedom without inflicting ill on the freedom
of others. Being a end for-self differs from being a end in-self because being in-self consist
of having a predetermined essence, or lack of free will like a inanimate object ;
where as the former implies an ability for recreating our being through actions and choices daily.
Her book explains the responsibility freedom entails as a constant exercise of our free will.
"Thus, human spontaneity always projects itself toward something… But in order for
this meaning to justify the transcendence which discloses it, it must itself be
founded, which it will never be if I do not choose to found it myself… To convert the
absence into presence, to convert my flight into will, I must assume my project positively…
But one can choose not to will himself free. In laziness… It must first be
observed that this will i developed in the course of time. It is in time that
the goal is pursued and that freedom confirms itself."
- Simone de Beauvoir , The Ethics of Ambiguity
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