View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1, Ambiguity and Freedom.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the face of emerging violence of man's growing mastery of the world, what does Beauvoir suggest to individuals who seek to navigate it?
(a) To accept the insignificance of the individual as a means of embracing individual ambiguity.
(b) To seek to understand God's role in the growing environment of violence.
(c) To assume and know the condition of our fundamental ambiguity.
(d) To discontinue to attempt to keep up with the changes going on in the world.

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

3. To what conclusion to Beauvoir arrive regarding Sartre's internal choices that are affected by personal passions?
(a) Since Sartre considers man as driven by internal passions, he brings to question the existence of the physical world and its causes and effects.
(b) Since man is directed by his eternal passions, the external force of God has no influence in Sartre's existentialism.
(c) Sartre's man eliminates the needs for external moral influence by following passions that eventually lead to personal benefit.
(d) Since passions and their choices are internal, there are no objective standards by which to define their usefulness.

4. How does Beauvoir define materialist philosophers?
(a) Those who "conceive all matter as eternal".
(b) Those who "see no life after this one".
(c) Those who see "no value in thought".
(d) Those who have "striven to reduce mind to matter".

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

Short Answer Questions

1. How does human spontaneity give purpose to a human life, according to Beauvoir?

2. How does Beauvoir compare Marxism to existentialism?

3. What does Beauvoir claim to be the affect of rejecting any extrinsic justification for internal choices?

4. At what point does Beauvoir claim an individual has the ability to decide and choose?

5. What explanation does Beauvoir give to assert that existentialist thought helps to build community.

(see the answer key)

This section contains 699 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample