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Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt on Labor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Andrea Veltman
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Abstract

Comparing the typologies of human activities developed by Beauvoir and Arendt, I argue that these philosophers share the same concept of labor as well as a similar insight that labor cannot provide a justification or evaluative measure for human life. But Beauvoir and Arendt think differently about work (as contrasted with labor), and Arendt alone illuminates the inability of constructive work to provide non-utilitarian value for human existence. Beauvoir, on the other hand, exceeds Arendt in examining the ethical implications of our existential need for a plurality of free peers in a public realm.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 25 , Issue 1: Special Issue: FEAST I: Current Work in Feminist Ethics and Social Theory , Winter 2010 , pp. 55 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by Hypatia, Inc.

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