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CHAPTER 18
PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE
INSTRUCTIONS: Select the best answer according to the text.
TRUE/FALSE
1. A philosophical advocate is any philosopher whose work
actively opposes a perceived injustice.
2. Although contemporary philosophers may disagree about
specific issues, they nonetheless agree that today s
philosophers must take sides, must step forward as
philosophical advocates.
3. A current critique of philosophy holds that modern
philosophers have failed to recognize that they have
personal, social, and ethnic perspectives.
4. Modern philosophy s emphasis on objectivity and
personal detachment disturb growing numbers of
philosophers.
5. Jean-Paul Sartre s philosophy was profoundly shaped by
his experiences as a Nazi.
6. Sartre was popular and influential during his lifetime.
7. Sartre attempted to construct an existential Marxism,
but was never a Marxist.
8. According to Sartre, an authentic self exists as and through
the choices it makes.
9. According to Sartre, facing life without God results in
forlornness.
10. Sartre claimed that we are free to be free.
11. Sartre illustrated the forlornness of freedom with a
story about a student seeking advice.
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12. According to Sartre, facing life without God results in
anguish.
13. Sartre characterized his existentialism as optimistic
despair.
14. Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting at the lunch
counter of a whites-only diner.
15. Martin Luther King, Jr., became famous as a leader of the
Montgomery bus boycott triggered by Rosa Parks s arrest.
16. King advocated active nonviolent resistance to injustice.
17. King advocated the deliberate creation of moral tension
as a way of arousing the public s conscience.
18. Philosophy was among the first academic disciplines to
award a Ph.D. to a black woman.
19. According to Carol Gilligan, excessive reliance on
rationality has deprived women and nontraditional
philosophers of the capacity to speak in the objective
voice.
20. As of 2008, the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers
was able to identify only thirty full-time black women
philosophy teachers in America.
21. Some philosophers use the term autobiography to
express their concerns about whether ethnic, gender or
other personal categories create philosophical differences
or are more a matter of social differences
22. Peter Singer s hypothetical case of the man who allows an
innocent child to die rather than lose his Bugatti raises
uncomfortable questions about our attitudes toward the
suffering of others compared to our own comforts.
23. Martha C. Nussbaum believes that philosophers ought to
be physicians of humanity.
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24. Martha C. Nussbaum s concern for the humane
treatment of all people was affected, in part, by a
colleague who once referred to her as a courtesan.
25. Peter Singer has become notorious for positions he takes
based on his strict application of utilitarian principles.
26. Peter Singer suggests that it might be more compassionate
to conduct medical experiments on permanently disabled
unconscious orphans than on conscious, sentient animals.
27. According to Nussbaum, the neo-Stoics have failed to
present a coherent vision of life.
28. Today, the public function of the sage has been taken over
by the philosophy professor.
29. Both trivializing and romanticizing the search for wisdom
result in overlooking the unifying function of valuing the
search itself.
30. Will Durant suggests that today s culture is superficial
because television is like a vampire.
31. According to Pierre Hadot, the true philosopher knows
that wisdom is not the normal state of human beings.
32. According to Pierre Hadot, the true philosopher knows
that wisdom is an almost inaccessible state.
33. Pierre Hadot asserts that through true philosophy the
conflict between wisdom and the world can be totally
resolved.
34. Epictetus invites us to begin living as persons wanting to
be like the gods.
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MULTIPLE CHOICE
35. In No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre contrasts _____ with _____.
a. men/women
b. the authentic self/the social self
c. technological progress/philosophical retreat
d. taking a philosophy test/eating a snack
36. Sartre s experience with _____ convinced him that evil
is real.
a. love
b. the German occupation of France
c. the murder of his friend Simone de Beauvoir
d. tuberculosis
37. According to Sartre, we are _____ .
a. shaped by our individual essence
b. guided by our individual essence
c. free to be as free as we want
d. the totality of our actions
38. _____ is Sartre s term for living without God.
a. Forlornness
b. Despair
c. Anxiety
d. Anguish
39. _____ is Sartre s term for confining ourselves to acting
within the realm of probabilities rather than possibilities.
a. Forlornness
b. Despair
c. Anxiety
d. Anguish
40. According to Sartre, our choices are limited by _____ .
a. God
b. society
c. nature
d. nothing
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41. According to Sartre, _____ .
a. essence precedes existence
b. existence precedes essence
c. God precedes man
d. forlornness precedes joy
42. According to Sartre, we are condemned _____ .
a. by our genetic limits
b. to follow the shadowy trail of our parents
c. to be free
d. to be condemned
43. According to Sartre, choosing an adviser is _____ .
a. the last free choice we make
b. choosing yourself
c. the best way to escape the bondage of freedom
d. the first step toward authenticity
44. Sartre was chiefly concerned with _____ .
a. beliefs
b. character
c. existence
d. rational justification for action
45. According to Sartre, if we adopt a rigorous existentialist
philosophy, then we must confine our planning and efforts
to _____ .
a. the greatest range of possibilities imaginable
b. what is under our immediate control and influence
c. acting without thinking
d. moments of free impulse
46. For Sartre, value _____ .
a. precedes action
b. precedes choice
c. is expressed through action and choice
d. is confined to conscious reflection
47. Sartre characterized his existentialism as _____ .
a. naïve optimism
b. tough pessimism
c. optimistic fatalism
d. optimistic toughness
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48. The civil rights movement gained national attention with
an explosive Supreme Court decision in a case
concerning _____ .
a. Linda Brown
b. Rosa Parks
c. Henry David Thoreau
d. Ralph Abernathy
49. Rosa Parks s arrest triggered the _____ .
a. Linda Brown case
b. Montgomery bus boycott
c. Montgomery lunch counter boycott
d. Montgomery Ward boycott
50. Martin Luther King, Jr., taught that _____ .
a. the force of resistance should exactly match the force
of opposition
b. under no circumstances could civil dissenters stand
by and passively accept physical abuse; they must fight
back to earn the public s respect
c. resisters must suffer without fighting back
d. resisters should fight back only after repeatedly
warning their opponents of their intentions to defend
themselves
51. Nonviolent resistance differs from passive acceptance of
injustice in that nonviolent resistance _____ .
a. lasts longer and thereby refuses to accept injustice
b. is religiously based
c. deliberately interferes with whatever is being
opposed
d. includes massive media appeals
52. According to King, _____ .
a. the ends never justify unjust means
b. unjust means are demanded if they are the only
effective way to defeat a reprehensible law
c. the ends justify the means so long as there is racism
d. ends and means do not affect each other
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53. King said that moral tension is _____ by nonviolent resistance.
a. created
b. avoided
c. reduced
d. exposed
54. Carol Gilligan says that the voice of care is expressed
.
a. in the language of rights
b. in a different voice
c. only by women
d. whenever we act justly
55. _____ is associated with but not confined to women.
a. The irrational voice
b. The mystical model of knowing
c. The different voice that s been overlooked by
modern philosophers and scientists
d. The attempt to make philosophy multidisciplinary
56. Martha C. Nussbaum says that too many professional
intellectuals _____ .
a. dabble in current affairs
b. get involved in social causes such as freedom and
justice
c. choose to study social science and overlook
literature and philosophy
d. fail to use their abilities to improve the human
condition
57. Martha C. Nussbaum uses the example of _____ to
discuss the way women have been systematically marginalized
in academic environments.
a. Sartre s rude treatment of Simone de Beauvoir
b. a train running into a prized luxury automobile
c. a joke made at her expense by a respected
professor
d. the high number of female clerical assistants at
Harvard
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58. When Martha C. Nussbaum became the first female to hold
a fellowship in the Harvard Classics Department, an important
member of the faculty welcomed her by joking that rather
than refer to her as a fellowess, perhaps he could refer
to her with the Greek word for _____.
a. crony
b. courtesan
c. feminist
d. peer
59. Although philosophy is the oldest academic discipline,
the first Ph.D. in philosophy wasn t awarded to a black
woman until _____.
a. 1929
b. 1889
c. 1965
d. 2001
60. According to U.S. Department of Education, in 2009 black
philosophers accounted for _____ of the Ph.D.s awarded
in philosophy.
a. about one-third
b. approximately 13%
c. 25%
d. 2.48%
61. As recently as 2008, the Collegium of Black Women
Philosophers was able to identify only _____ full-time
black women philosophy teachers in America.
a. 30
b. 95
c. 112
d. 245
62. Deliberate attempts to increase diversity among
professional philosophers by introducing new areas of
philosophical studies associated with gender or ethnicity
_____ .
a. are generally accepted as the best solution to a
long overdue problem
b. run the risk of exacerbating the very problem
these areas of study hope to address
c. have clearly failed
d. have clearly succeeded
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63. Peter Singer has achieved notoriety for the controversial
positions he asserts based on his advocacy of _____ .
a. contemporary utilitarianism
b. liberal feminism
c. liberal secular humanism
d. mandatory euthanasia for the extremely old
64. Singer argues that euthanasia and infanticide are _____ .
a. never morally acceptable, although they may be
justifiable
b. sometimes necessary, given the complexities of the
modern world
c. precisely the sorts of insoluble moral controversies
that philosophers must stay out of if they are to be
effective advocates for social reform
d. purely private concerns that the government must
stay out of
65. In 1999, Singer argued that everyone not already living in
poverty should _____.
a. give all income over $100,000 to famine relief
b. adopt local poor people by providing them one
meal a day
c. give all income over $30,000 to famine relief
d. give all income over $20,000 to famine relief
66. Singer agrees with Bentham that what matters most is
whether any animal (including humans) can _____.
a. suffer
b. reason
c. communicate
d. experience love
67. Singer uses the hypothetical case of _____ to challenge us
to reconsider our attitudes toward helping the less
fortunate.
a. a poor child with severe brain damage and an
alcoholic mother
b. Hungry Bob and his little dog Treadway
c. the man who had no home
d. a man s love for his Bugatti
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68. Martha C. Nussbaum argues that the absence of _____
means that the most influential views tend to be those of
the most powerful or rhetorically adept individuals and
groups.
a. public deliberation
b. democracy
c. women in positions of leadership
d. economic justice
69. Pierre Hadot suggests that often _____ are more
philosophical than a philosophical treatise.
a. scientific studies
b. songs and dances
c. children s games
d. poems or biographies
70. According to Pierre Hadot, the ancient philosophical life
_____.
a. turned out to be a sham and utter failure that has
misled people for centuries
b. is equivalent to the modern artistic life
c. was always linked to care for others
d. was invented by Plato as a teaching tool and not
meant to be practiced
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Chapter 18
PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE
1. Identify some of the main themes in the current critique of
modern philosophy. What do you see as the strongest points made
by critics of modernity? The weakest? *
2. Why did Sartre think that existence is absurd? What is the
significance of this idea to Sartre s view of human freedom?
3. What did Sartre mean by the phrase existence precedes
essence ? What would it mean for essence to precede existence?
Why is the issue important? Do you agree with Sartre? Explain. *
4. Distinguish between an authentic self and an inauthentic self.
What is the relationship between social roles and authenticity
according to Sartre?
5. Explain what Sartre meant when he said that we are
condemned to be free. What kind of freedom did he have in
mind? Was he right? Explain. *
6. Make cases for and against Martin Luther King, Jr. s belief that
most people have goodness in them that can be awakened by
nonviolent social action. Which is the better case? Why? *
7. What is creative moral tension? Exactly how does it
work? What basic principles does it rest on? Do you think it
is a realistic policy? Explain. *
8. How should philosophers as philosophers deal with the
underrepresentation of different categories of people (black
women, gays, lesbians, Native Americans, and others)? Is this a
philosophical issue? If not, why not? If so, what is specifically
philosophical about it?
9. Discuss the concept of public philosophical advocate by
referring to the careers of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Peter Singer.
10. What does Martha C. Nussbaum have in mind when she
suggests that philosophers should be lawyers for humanity ? Do
you agree? Explain.
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11. Analyze Peter Singer s solution to world poverty. Pay special
attention to Singer s claim that we should give away all income over
$30,000 in 1999 dollars. What is today s equivalent of $30,000 in
1999 dollars? Why not give away much more, if we can? Are you
convinced by Singer s argument? *
12. What does Pierre Hadot mean when he says that philosophers
are atopos? Is that a good thing?
13. Now that you have had a whole school term to think about it,
what is philosophy? What is a philosopher? Are you a philosopher?
Explain. *
14. What s the difference between a sophos and a philosopher?
Must we be one in order to be the other?
15. Do you believe there is such a thing as wisdom? Are human
beings capable of finding it? Does it matter?
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CHAPTER 18 ANSWERS