" The thing that matters to the serious man is not so much .
the nature of the object which he prefers to himself, but .
rather the fact of being able to lose himself in it. So much .
so, that the movement toward the object is, in fact, though .
his arbitrary act the most radical assertion of subjectivity: .
to believe for belief's sake, to will for will's sake, is detaching transcendence from its end, to realize one's freedom in its .
empty and absurd form of freedom of indifference." .
The serious man has a particular role or character that he sets himself as. This role is intense, allowing him to escape reality and forget his freedom. In doing this, the serious man becomes obsessed with his role that he does not care for anyone. On page 49 of Ethics, "it is natural that he makes himself a tyrant he ignores the value of the subjectivity and the freedom of others- The serious man will too become free after he acknowledges that the object isn't something that brings him joy. .
The nihilist is the third attitude explained. De Beauvoir explains that the nihilist sees the world as something dangerous and he chooses to reject it. He sees that the world consists of ready-made values that he works to destroy completely. The nihilist rejects ambiguity. The world seems to be an unjustified illusion. The nihilist "denies everything which is not his object in order to hide from himself the antinomies of action."(56) To the nihilist, the world is nothing and cannot justify itself and it is up to him to validate it in his own terms. He rejects his own existence, and therefore he is inconsistent. "We have seen that the serious contradicts itself by the fact that not everything can be taken seriously. It slips into partial nihilism. But nihilism is unstable. It tends to return to the positive." (68 Ethics) This inconsistency, or contradiction is what makes the nihilist and the other attitudes lack being. But when the world seems to have justification due to ethics and curiosity, the nihilist will certainly become free.