The Ethics of Ambiguity; Quiz

Take our free The Ethics of Ambiguity; quiz below, with 25 multiple choice questions that help you test your knowledge. Determine which chapters, themes and styles you already know and what you need to study for your upcoming essay, midterm, or final exam. Take the free quiz now!

What does Beauvoir mean when she writes, "...festivals whose role is to stop the movement of transcendence?" (from Chapter 3, The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Sections 4-5, The Present and the Future, Ambiguity and Conclusion)

Festivals become both a means and an end to obscure the meaninglessness of both the present and the future.

The end has been set up as an end.

Festivals marking a movement's success obscure the means used to attain the success.

Festivals take people away from their future ambiguity.

What does Beauvoir suggest to be the motivation of those who adopt the Aesthetic Attitude? (from Chapter 3, The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Sections 1-3, The Aesthetic Attitude, Freedom and Liberation, The Antinomies of Action)

It is meant to understand the beauty of freedom.

It is a way of fleeing the truth of the present.

It is taken so the individual can reflect on the role of the will in using freedom.

It is a means of understanding the role of oppression in history.

What does Beauvoir claim to be the basis upon which a man decides upon what he wants to be? (from Chapter 2, Personal Freedom and Others)

Upon the basis of moral choice.

Upon the basis of his ethical code providing the greatest benefit.

Upon the basis of what he has been.

Upon the basis of the most beneficial consequences of his acts.

How do ethics of ambiguity avoid being solipsistic? (from Chapter 3, The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Sections 4-5, The Present and the Future, Ambiguity and Conclusion)

Because the means of an end often affect more individual than the achievement of the end itself.

Because it demands that individuals engage matter in the pursuit of projects.

Because goals often transcend the life of the individual who initiates them.

By the fact that the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and other individuals.

To what does Beauvoir compare the presence of freedom within the drama of choice? (from Chapter 2, Personal Freedom and Others)

The arbitrariness of the grace distributed by God in Calvinistic Doctrine.

The calm before the storm.

The adolescent who sees the world constructed for him as a child is corrupt.

The historian who chooses threads that take him to the original cause.