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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Beauvoir suggest that if man waits for universal peace to establish his existence validly, he will wait indefinitely?
(a) Because the world has always been at war and always will be.
(b) Because struggles for controlling the future by politicians will prevent universal peace.
(c) Because it is man's reaction to war that establishes validity.
(d) Because peace is not required to establish validity.

2. What contradiction does Beauvoir suggest will come to those who fight for a cause due to the complexity of the world?
(a) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to face a humiliating defeat.
(b) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to sacrifice his principles.
(c) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to the point of fighting against valid causes.
(d) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to leaving a valued friend.

3. What three considerations an individual make before acting are abstract, according to Beauvoir?
(a) Is the action ambiguous, is it mental, is it physical.
(b) Is the action possible, is it future-oriented, will it affect the self.
(c) Does the action lead to a goal, is it transcendent, will it affect the self.
(d) Is the action practical, is it good, is it bad.

4. How does Beauvoir explain that technics (technology) is not objectively justified?
(a) Technics makes the absolute goal of saving time and work of life, but life only gains meaning when time and work are spent.
(b) Technics depends on science for its gains, but science only has purpose when it can transcend time.
(c) Technics can have significant benefit for projects in the present, but too often it fuels the desire to accept the Aesthetic Attitude.
(d) Technics too often aims at expanding freedom, but ends up causing individuals to be absorbed into the seriousness of projects.

5. What does Beauvoir suggest of movements whose means of achieving a goal contradicts the goal?
(a) The whole enterprise sinks into absurdity.
(b) The action will set off a chain of events that will negate the goal.
(c) The goal and the individual will be disregarded.
(d) The individual who takes such an approach will become a politician.

6. How does Beauvoir claim an individual can prevent life from being defined as an escape toward nothingness?
(a) Projects must be taken in consideration of their consequences.
(b) Existence must be asserted in the present.
(c) Impossible or utopian goals must not be set.
(d) All goals must consider the ambiguity of all life.

7. What example did Beauvoir use to show how those who fight for a cause will come to accept certain contradictions.
(a) Politicians who were defeated in elections by foretelling the realized negative consequences of popular programs.
(b) Martyrs who were killed by authoritarians who sought to kill their causes, but their deaths gave it more influence.
(c) Natives who fought freedom from the British Empire during WWII with the support of Fascist regimes.
(d) Generals who were willing to pull their soldiers from battle so they could win a more important battle later.

8. Why does Beauvoir claim that no project can be considered to be purely contemplative?
(a) Because a project requires putting action to contemplation.
(b) Because projects are contemplated in the present to be completed in the future and become part of the past.
(c) Because an individual is continually projects himself toward something in the future through a project.
(d) Because projects are contemplated differently by others who act differently from their perspectives.

9. What does Beauvoir recognize as the paradox that faces a man who is willing to fight for a valid cause?
(a) The only way a man can make an important gain is to sacrifice something equally important.
(b) Only sacrifice can lead to achievement.
(c) No action can be generated for man without its being immediately generated against men.
(d) Man can only assure better life by causing death to those who would destroy it.

10. What does Beauvoir mean when she refers to "The Antinomies of Action"?
(a) That improper actions against oppression will lead to more oppression.
(b) That actions, not words, are most effective against oppression.
(c) That often in the fight for or against oppression, the action contradicts the motivation.
(d) That the intentions of the those who act against oppression must be constantly in check.

11. How does Beauvoir claim an individual can put himself on the plane of the universal and the infinite?
(a) By taking goals that will transcend their lives.
(b) By considering a system abstractly and theoretically.
(c) By considering the ambiguity of their decisions.
(d) By assuring the means and the ends justify each other.

12. How does Beauvoir suggest violent action against oppression becomes a contradiction to the cause of freedom?
(a) Because those who see oppressors as being beneficial will believe they fight for freedom in defense of an oppressor.
(b) Because conquering enemies requires reducing the enemies to things and those who fight oppression must reduce themselves to things as well.
(c) Because those who fight oppression generally desire the power of those they attempt to overthrow.
(d) Because those who fight oppression must oppress those who fight with them to command the battle.

13. If an individual does not inform a slave of his oppression, what does Beauvoir suggest of their position regarding tyranny?
(a) The individual who remains silent regarding tyranny assumes the Aesthetic Attitude.
(b) The individual who remains silent regarding tyranny is complicit in tyranny.
(c) The individual who remains silent regarding tyranny loses his will to be free.
(d) The individual who remains silent regarding tyranny becomes a tyrant himself.

14. What does Beauvoir note to be the objection of oppressors who are facing overthrow for the cause of freedom?
(a) By overthrowing their oppression, the freedom of oppressors is being deprived.
(b) Overthrowing the order of oppressors threatens to subject all to barbarism.
(c) Overthrowing oppressors will bring neophytes to incompetently administer the principles of law and justice.
(d) Those who overthrow an oppressor are only seeking the power to oppress.

15. What does Beauvoir suggest to be the motivation of those who adopt the Aesthetic Attitude?
(a) It is a means of understanding the role of oppression in history.
(b) It is taken so the individual can reflect on the role of the will in using freedom.
(c) It is meant to understand the beauty of freedom.
(d) It is a way of fleeing the truth of the present.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Beauvoir, what stops an individual's life from appearing as a negligible thing?

2. Why does Beauvoir suggest that the idea of the ambiguity of existence should not be considered absurd?

3. How does Beauvoir suggest that Christian charity, Epicurean cult of friendship, and Kantian moralism share the same point of views?

4. How does Beauvoir explain that an individual might be responsible for what they accept, but not guilty for acting upon it?

5. Since human life is finite, with what does Beauvoir suggest the individual should concern himself?

(see the answer keys)

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