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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. According to Beauvoir, how is freedom present within the drama of choice?
(a) In the moment before consequences are evident.
(b) Within the analysis that leads to a decision.
(c) Only in the form of contingency.
(d) Before the realization that a choice must be made.

2. How does the child's life begin actually become serious according to Beauvoir?
(a) By feeling the consequences of poorly thought decisions.
(b) Through following the examples of role models.
(c) By learning which erases his ignorance.
(d) By restricting his actions to those that gain rewards.

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

4. How does Beauvoir suggest that Christian charity, Epicurean cult of friendship, and Kantian moralism share the same point of views?
(a) By making the individual the ends of which their actions must aim.
(b) By recognizing the limits of their moral laws.
(c) By recognizing the failures of their histories.
(d) By recognizing the similarities that define their ambiguity.

5. What does Beauvoir state is the goal at which her freedom aims?
(a) "...(C)onquering existence across the always inadequate density of being."
(b) "Seeing the doors of defeat before initiating and act."
(c) "Rejecting the verdicts of doubters and seeing the possibility of achieving ends through obstacles."
(d) "Understanding the difference between delusion, denial, and stone pounding to affirm true existence."

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Beauvoir claim can come to people who are filled with the horror of defeat?

2. What are the four items that Beauvoir identifies as the "indefinite conquests of existence over being"?

3. What does Beauvoir indicate can sometimes happen when there is a failure of the serious?

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

5. When an individual aims at a goal that will be achieved beyond his own death, what does Beauvoir claim the individual should expect from the time given to the goal?

(see the answer key)

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