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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. How does Beauvoir compare women to slaves?
(a) By pointing out that many women choose to be ignorant of the condition of the world.
(b) By pointing out that women create an existence in their minds that escapes the reality of the world around them.
(c) By pointing out that women are subject to the laws, gods, customs, and truths created by males.
(d) By pointing out that women base their success on the contentment of their families.

3. What idea regarding ethics does Beauvoir attribute to Hegel?
(a) "Ethics is self-contained because reality is self-contained."
(b) "Ethics are the creation of minds that fear facing problems."
(c) "There is an ethics only if there is a problem to solve."
(d) "Ethics is irrelevant because they only affect manipulation of a material universe."

4. What does Beauvoir suggest becomes the intellectual responsibility of existentialists who reject God?
(a) He has the responsibility of defining how works for self-benefit are also beneficial to his environs.
(b) He bears the responsibility to show his works for self-benefit do not affect others in his environs.
(c) He bears the responsibility to prove the lives of others have not affects on himself, starting with the union of his parents that brought his existence.
(d) He bears responsibility for a world which is not the work of strange power.

5. How does Beauvoir explain that Marxists perceive that acts can be regarded as good or bad?
(a) Only through the destruction of private property.
(b) Only when systems are formed in which each gives according to his ability.
(c) Through the revolt of a class which define aims and goals from a which a new state appears as desirable.
(d) Only when systems are designed that each takes according to his need.

6. How does Beauvoir explain that the serious man becomes a dangerous tyrant?
(a) He ignores the subjectivity of his choice and sacrifices the freedom of others to achieve his goals.
(b) His ultimate goal is always to exert power over other people and usurp their freedom to his purposes.
(c) The consequences of his choices to devote himself to his goal requires that he direct the choices of those around him.
(d) His choice to reject the ambiguity of his freedom combined with the desire to achieve his goal drives him to subject those in his environment to nothing more than instruments of achievement.

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

8. What does Beauvoir identify as the spirit of seriousness?
(a) Facing the reality that the fate of all is the grave.
(b) Leaving the fallacy of existentialism that only thought matters.
(c) Leaving the fallacy of materialists that only matter matters.
(d) To consider values as ready-made things.

9. How does Beauvoir explain how goals supplant freedom in the life of the serious man?
(a) Goals become the means of defining the existence of the serious man at the cost of freedom and individually defining his ethics.
(b) Rather than finding freedom in choosing goals, the serious man chooses goals to avoid his freedom.
(c) The serious man is defined by his goal not by his choices or acts.
(d) The serious man rejects all independent thought for the sake of achieving his goal.

10. What does Beauvoir claim comes of an accomplished act that is left behind by an individual?
(a) The affects of the act continue, but the act becomes forgotten.
(b) It has a diminished affect as time and spontaneous acts have different consequences.
(c) The act remains as an experience that lends to the development of the will.
(d) It becomes nothing more than a fact.

11. What does Beauvoir identify as the irony of the serious man?
(a) He defends the seriousness of his goals while disputing the seriousness of the goals of others.
(b) He claims that he freely chose his goals, but they are extensions of the structures that formed his childhood.
(c) He considers his goals to be serious whereas the free man considers them to be trivial.
(d) He pursues his serious goals but finds them to be insufficient once they are achieved.

12. What does Beauvoir claim to be the affect of rejecting any extrinsic justification for internal choices?
(a) Such rejection would also reject the original pessimism which she seeks to address with her work.
(b) Such rejection also removes the motivations upon passions are fueled.
(c) Such rejection would lead to the erosion of any social order that makes choice useful.
(d) Such rejection also eliminates any standard by which choices are determined to be useful.

13. Who does Beauvoir use as an example of moving through such obstacles?
(a) Hitler.
(b) Vincent Van Gogh.
(c) Adalai Stevenson.
(d) Sisyphus.

14. How does the "sub-man" submerge his freedom, according to Beauvoir?
(a) He avoids actions that have consequences.
(b) He ignores the ambiguity of his existence.
(c) He accepts the ethics and expectations of society.
(d) He refuses subjectivity in favor of predictability.

15. 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.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Beauvoir report comes to the individual at the time the world changes in his perspective?

2. How does Beauvoir define materialist philosophers?

3. What does Beauvoir seek to prove regarding man's mastery of the world?

4. What role does time play what Beauvoir identifies as the ability to will oneself free?

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

(see the answer keys)

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