One of the most important problems confronted by existentialist thought clearly appears to be the one referring to the possible contradiction between authenticity and ethics. This problem has not been sufficiently explored in philosophical literature, despite being one of the core issues proposed within existentialist thought. In the following, we, the authors of this essay, shall argue that such an argument- i.e., that existentialism fails to prove a strong link between ethics and authenticity-is misleading, since it is generally built upon two erroneous beliefs concerning existentialism: first, that existentialism fully acknowledges that an authentic decision can be taken from a disembodied position, from a purely rational, detached, unambiguous position and, second, that for existentialism the ethical and the authentic are completely independent entities. There is at least one existentialist perspective from which this argument appears to clearly fail. We shall consider Simone de Beauvoir's conception of ethics and of the authentic as being one of the existentialist views on authenticity and ethics that most clearly demonstrates why such conception of existentialist ethics and authenticity are mistaken or are at least based on a very narrow view on existentialism. Authenticity, de Beauvoir argues, cannot be achieved or pursued from a place which fails to recognize our phenomenological and existentialist true condition: our being in the world as ambiguous and incarnate subjects. Moreover, for de Beauvoir, being moral is a straightforward consequence of being authentic. Acts can be made from a disembodied perspective, but they cannot then be said to be moral or authentic from de Beauvoir's point of view. Thus, we shall argue that the argument according to which embodiment, authenticity, and ethics are not necessarily interdependent within existentialist thought succeeds only when a very limited (or even equivocal, de Beauvoir would argue) notion of authenticity and of the relationship between ethics and authenticity is at stake. One of the ways to flesh out the problem we are arguing against is by showing how an utterly unethical deed might result out of a deeply authentic action. This has been recently done in a most lucid fashion by Iddo Landau in To Kill a Mandarin1 through a thought experiment. We shall make use of Landau's argument in order to clearly explain and exemplify the general problem we attempt to show as rising from a flawed understanding of existentialist principles. The first part of this essay, thus, will summarize Landau's argument by explaining the thought experiment proposed by him and its consequences. In the second part we will deal with de Beauvoir's views on the authentic ethical subject as necessarily embodied, ambiguous, and connected to the other in order to show, finally, that disembodied, unattached, abstract actions cannot be considered authentic actions, nor, obviously, are they moral actions (this is why a truly authentic subject would not agree to kill a Mandarin). The problem presented is then solved: there is no clash between ethics and authenticity from the existentialist point of view, when the authentic subject is recognized as a necessarily basis for moral behavior, thus inevitably connecting the later to authenticity. Landau's experiment thus is misleading because it is in itself an experiment based on a conception of existentialist authenticity and ethics that is problematic on two counts: a conception which considers a disembodied, abstract subject as possibly authentic from the existentialist point of view and as capable, out of his/her own authenticity, of committing seriously immoral acts. Landau's Thought Experiment In his article To Kill a Mandarin, Landau deals with the i mplications of a thought experiment drawn from Balzac's Le Pere Goriot. The thought experiment consists of the following situation: Suppose a magician approaches you, and suggests that he will give you that thing you so much want. …