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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 2, Personal Freedom and Others.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Descartes credit man's unhappiness to, according to Beauvoir?
(a) The inner conflict between doing right and doing what he wants.
(b) His lack of freedom.
(c) His inability to accept his ambiguity.
(d) Having first been a child.

2. What is a principle that Beauvoir states that an ethics of ambiguity will refuse to deny a priori?
(a) That separate existants can be bound to each other, such as individual freedoms can forge laws valid for all.
(b) That "ethics of ambiguity" are as solipsistic as is existentialism.
(c) That, by definition, "ethics of ambiguity" must remained undefined.
(d) That the most important element of "ethics of ambiguity" is to disallow them from defining the conduct of those outside their understanding.

3. By quoting Dostoyevsky ("If God does not exist, then everything is permitted"), what examination does Beauvoir make?
(a) The role of the physical world on the development of a moral code.
(b) The role of the existence of God in defining the existence of man and the world.
(c) The role of a dualistic spiritual existence in directing passion.
(d) The role of an external moral code in extinguishing passions.

4. In what sense does Beauvoir claim that every man is free?
(a) In the sense that he spontaneously casts himself into the world.
(b) In the sense that he can choose his own ethic.
(c) In the sense that he is free to end or continue his existence.
(d) In the sense that only consequences affect his choices.

5. What does Beauvoir identify as the spirit of seriousness?
(a) Leaving the fallacy of existentialism that only thought matters.
(b) To consider values as ready-made things.
(c) Facing the reality that the fate of all is the grave.
(d) Leaving the fallacy of materialists that only matter matters.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Beauvoir explain what Descartes meant when he said that the freedom of man is infinite, but this power is limited?

2. What does Beauvoir claim to be the basis upon which a man decides upon what he wants to be?

3. How does Beauvoir define nihilism?

4. Beauvoir claims that critics of existentialism claim that it is solipsistic. What is solipsism?

5. How does Beauvoir claim the condition of the world changes from child to adolescence?

(see the answer key)

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