Philosophy Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A city must choose between two policies. Which consideration would classical utilitarianism emphasize?
Which policy best preserves inherited customs regardless of effects
Which policy expresses the leader’s personal virtues most clearly
Which policy follows a rule that admits no attention to outcomes
Which policy is expected to produce the greatest overall wellbeing
2. A storm cancels an important event. According to the Stoic distinction between what is and is not under our control, what should receive the person’s main attention?
Proving that disappointment is irrational in every circumstance
Finding someone morally responsible for the weather’s effects
Choosing a constructive response to circumstances they cannot change
Eliminating every emotional response before making a decision
3. A firefighter feels fear but responds neither recklessly nor cowardly. Which Aristotelian idea does this best illustrate?
Virtue can lie between opposing excesses relative to the situation
Only consequences determine whether conduct is virtuous
Knowledge is recollection of eternal Forms
Moral conduct requires withdrawal from public life
4. After repeatedly seeing one event follow another, someone claims the first must necessarily cause the second. Which response best reflects David Hume’s skepticism about causation?
Causal knowledge comes from remembering innate ideas
Causation is valid only when it supports a moral duty
Every observed regularity is a logically certain law of nature
Repeated sequence supports expectation but does not reveal a necessary connection
5. A leader stops imposing elaborate controls and instead creates conditions in which a community can organize with minimal forcing. Which Daoist idea does this resemble?
The mandate to maximize aggregate utility
Wu wei, or action that avoids unnecessary forcing
Methodological doubt about external objects
Strict adherence to an unconditional moral command
6. Designers choose social rules without knowing their future wealth, abilities, or status. Which philosophical device are they using?
John Rawls’s veil of ignorance
Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean
Descartes’s method of doubt
Nietzsche’s genealogy of morality
7. Jean-Paul Sartre’s phrase “existence precedes essence” is commonly understood to mean that human beings:
Possess a timeless rational nature that completely determines their lives
Exist first and shape themselves through choices rather than receiving a fixed purpose
Can discover moral truth only by studying biological instincts
Should reject responsibility because all choices are predetermined
8. A person asks, “Could I affirm living this same life again, including its hardships, countless times?” Which Nietzschean idea frames this question?
The social contract
The tabula rasa
Eternal recurrence
The original position
9. Which lifestyle would Epicurus most likely associate with enduring pleasure?
Pursuing luxury continually so that desire never weakens
Cultivating friendship, modest desires, and freedom from disturbance
Seeking political power as the most reliable protection from anxiety
Rejecting every pleasant experience as morally corrupting
10. A Buddhist account explains anger as arising through interacting conditions rather than from an isolated, permanent self. Which teaching is most relevant?
The immortality of an individual soul
The priority of sensory pleasure over tranquility
The divine right of rulers
Dependent origination
11. Which approach is most characteristic of the Socratic method?
Testing beliefs through a sequence of probing questions
Suspending all judgment to achieve tranquility
Deriving moral rules from measured consequences alone
Explaining nature exclusively through mathematical experiments
12. Which statement did René Descartes treat as certain even during radical doubt?
Existence precedes essence
To be is to be perceived
The unexamined life is not worth living
I think, therefore I am
13. In Plato’s allegory of the cave, prisoners mistake shadows for the whole of reality. What contrast does this most directly illustrate?
Private property versus communal ownership
Emotional pleasure versus physical pain
Appearances accepted uncritically versus deeper understanding
Free choice versus causal determinism
14. Which claim would Karl Popper regard as having the strongest scientific character?
A claim accepted by most people in a research community
A claim built from observations without any theoretical assumptions
A claim making testable predictions that could conflict with observation
A claim that has been established with permanent certainty
15. In Confucian thought, which concept most closely refers to humaneness or benevolent concern in relationships?
Ren
Dao, understood as withdrawal from every social role
Qi, understood specifically as logical demonstration
Li, understood specifically as legal punishment
16. Someone considers making a false promise to obtain a loan. Under Kant’s categorical imperative, which test is most relevant?
Whether the lie would create more pleasure than pain on this occasion
Whether the maxim of making false promises could be willed as a universal law
Whether respected members of the community would excuse the lie
Whether the borrower would later feel authentic about the decision