Week 15 Quiz

This week's chapter credits one philosopher with the formulation that, for human beings, existence comes before essence: people exist first and make themselves through their choices. Whose formulation is it?

Select one.

• Jean-Paul Sartre's
• Albert Camus'
• Simone de Beauvoir's
• René Descartes'

In Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, as the course gives it, what is the absurd?

Select one.

• A feeling of hopelessness that follows from seeing that life is pointless
• The view that nothing anyone does matters at all
• The clash between our demand for meaning and a world that offers none
• The claim that people exist first and make themselves by choosing

The Week 15 case on the course's thought-experiment roster asks whether a life can be meaningful in a world without given meaning. Which source does the roster credit for this case, Sisyphus and his rock?

Select one.

• Plato, Republic, Book VII
• Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism
• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
• Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

True or false: on the course's reading of Camus, the absurd is a feeling of despair, and The Myth of Sisyphus ends in hopelessness.

True or false.

• True
• False

Two coworkers want to go back to school. One has savings and a flexible schedule; the other works two jobs and cares for a parent. Which statement best captures Beauvoir's view of freedom and the situation, as the course gives it?

Select one.

• Only the first coworker is free; the second coworker's situation removes freedom entirely
• Both are free, and each situation widens or narrows the choices that are really open
• Both are equally free, because a person's situation makes no difference to real choices
• Neither is free, because society alone decides what each person becomes

A volunteer says, "My life matters because it plays a part in a purpose God has set." Which of the course's answers to the question of life's meaning does that statement express?

Select one.

• Meaning created by the individual
• Meaning found in valuable activities and relationships
• Meaning given from outside
• The absurd, as Camus describes it

A potter says, "My craft and my friendships give my days their point, and they are worth caring about whether or not I chose them." Which of the course's answers to the question of life's meaning does that statement express?

Select one.

• Meaning found in valuable activities and relationships
• Meaning given from outside
• Meaning created by the individual
• Existence precedes essence

Which of these pairings of a thought experiment with its source match the course's pinned roster? Select every pairing that matches.

Select every option that applies.

• The runaway trolley case: devised by Philippa Foot (1967)
• The Chinese room: Searle (1980)
• The Gettier cases: Gettier (1963)
• The runaway trolley case: devised by Judith Jarvis Thomson (1976)
• Sisyphus and his rock: Jean-Paul Sartre's lecture

This week's reconstruction of Camus' conclusion (illustrative) reads: "P1: If a person finds something worth doing in their task, their life can be meaningful. P2: Sisyphus, as Camus imagines him, finds something worth doing in his task. C: So Sisyphus's life can be meaningful." How does the course key this argument?

Select one.

• Invalid, because it reasons from the consequent back to the antecedent
• Sound, because the conclusion follows from the premises
• Invalid, because its conclusion is an open question
• Valid, by modus ponens; its soundness is not keyed

Dataset J, the theory-matching set (illustrative), has 8 statements, 2 for each theory in Dataset D. Which two of these statements does the course key to Kantian deontology? Select both.

Select every option that applies.

• Lying to get a loan is wrong because a universal rule of lying-to-borrow would defeat itself.
• Using a person merely as a tool is wrong even if it helps many.
• Count each person's happiness equally and choose the act with the best total.
• Ask what an honest, generous person would do here, and how it shapes who you become.