Abstract

This article focuses on Beauvoir’s critique of the “adventurer”, an apparently Nietzschean figure she depicts as “inauthentic” in The Ethics of Ambiguity. Its aim is to assess whether her criticisms of individualistic freedom amount to a tenable critique of Nietzsche. I start by outlining Beauvoir’s conception of the adventurer and his faults, before showing how this figure closely tracks distinctive features of Nietzsche’s “free spirit”. Finally, I evaluate whether or not Beauvoir’s criticisms apply to Nietzsche. Although he can be defended to some extent, I argue that Beauvoir shows how Nietzsche’s otherwise potentially attractive concept of the free spirit is more problematic than it might initially appear. [NB this article is in German.]