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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Beauvoir accuse Marxists of accepting moral superiority?
(a) By considering any movement in which a Marxist is involved to be part of the revolution of the proletariat.
(b) By morally condemning any member of the proletariat who does not participate in revolution.
(c) When Marxists find fault with their adversaries and charge them with cowardice, lying, selfishness, and venality.
(d) By being suspicious of any bourgeois revolution.

2. How does Beauvoir suggest a past accomplishment can be made relevant in the present?
(a) By comparing present acts to the acts of the past.
(b) By keeping a record of all accomplishments to reflect upon those experiences with every decision.
(c) By ceaselessly returning to it and justify it as part of the project with which the individual is currently involved.
(d) By tracing the affects of the act from the past through to the present.

3. What is the paradox with which Beauvoir closes Chapter One?
(a) In order to fill his existence, man must assume himself as a being who, "makes himself a lack of being so that there might be being."
(b) Man as an individual is, "At once alone in himself which makes up the mass of universality."
(c) "Man cannot know existence without first knowing his nothingness."
(d) Man is a being that, "in order to know the existence of achievement he must face the nothingness of failure."

4. What does Beauvoir require for an individual to genuinely desire an end in the present?
(a) A recognition of consequences that will come through the desired end.
(b) An expected manipulation of the material world through the desired end.
(c) A fulfillment of spontaneous desires over time.
(d) A desire for that end throughout his entire existence.

5. How does human spontaneity give purpose to a human life, according to Beauvoir?
(a) By spontaneous acts have affects in a physical world.
(b) By spontaneity always projecting itself toward something.
(c) By spontaneous acts require conscious evaluation to determine their usefulness.
(d) By the fact the spontaneous act of an individual draws a response from others.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Beauvoir claim that a spontaneous action, or flight, can be converted into will?

2. In what sense does Beauvoir claim that every man is free?

3. What is the illustration Beauvoir uses to prove her assertion of stubbornness in the face of impossibility?

4. According to Beauvoir, what is the goal of dualist teachings to their disciples?

5. How does Beauvoir claim that Marxists consider man's actions to be valid?

(see the answer key)

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