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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3, The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Sections 4-5, The Present and the Future, Ambiguity and Conclusion.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What relationship does Beauvoir identify between ethics and facticity?
(a) Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.
(b) Ethics is the ambiguous manipulation of facticity.
(c) Ethics cannot exist without facticity upon which to base them.
(d) Ethics are the spawn of facticity.

2. Why does Beauvoir suggest that the idea of the ambiguity of existence should not be considered absurd?
(a) Because to consider the ambiguity of existence absurd is to shut down debate that can define human existence.
(b) Because to consider the idea that human existence is ambiguous is to deny that human existence can ever be given a meaning.
(c) Because to consider the ambiguity of existence as absurd is, itself, absurd.
(d) Because clinging to labeling challenging ideas as absurd only limits intellectual investigation.

3. Who does Beauvoir use as an example of moving through such obstacles?
(a) Vincent Van Gogh.
(b) Adalai Stevenson.
(c) Sisyphus.
(d) Hitler.

4. Of what does Beauvoir accuse political parties in their effort to control the ambiguity of the human condition?
(a) Making contradictory statements to appeal to all people.
(b) Creating conflicts.
(c) Abuse of language.
(d) Glorifying war.

5. How does Beauvoir characterize the fate of the "sub-man"?
(a) He finds nothing to appreciate and in turn no one appreciates him.
(b) His ethics and facticity have no consequences, therefore they are nonexistent.
(c) He does not recognize his facticity, therefore he does not experience the triumph of freedom through the development of his ethics.
(d) He makes his way across a world deprived of meaning toward a death which merely confirm his long negation of himself.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Beauvoir explain that the Marxist paradox lends to her theory the scheme of man is ambiguous?

2. How does Beauvoir explain that Marxists perceive that acts can be regarded as good or bad?

3. How does Beauvoir characterize the purpose of the body?

4. Why does Beauvoir claim that some individuals have lives that slip into an infantile world?

5. What does Beauvoir define as the drama of original choice?

(see the answer key)

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