Quiz: Ethics

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Which example shows that one thing can be good, bad and indifferent at once?

   Money, which enriches the merchant and corrupts the miser Medicine, which cures one patient and kills another Wine, which cheers the healthy and harms the sick Music, which helps the melancholy, harms the mourner and means nothing to the deaf
2. 2. How does Spinoza answer the objection from Buridan’s ass?

   He says God would intervene to break the tie He says the man would choose freely by an act of will He denies that such an equilibrium is conceivable He admits that a man in such an equilibrium would die of hunger and thirst
3. 3. According to III.7, what is the endeavour by which a thing strives to persist in its being?

   A gift of divine grace added to its nature A habit acquired by education Nothing else but the thing’s actual essence An act of free will
4. 4. Where did Descartes say the mind is specially united to the body, according to the Preface to Part V?

   The blood flowing through the brain The pineal gland The heart, seat of the vital heat The optic nerves behind the eyes
5. 5. In the Appendix, on whom does Spinoza say the duty of providing for the poor falls?

   Each wealthy private person The poor themselves, through their labour The State as a whole The churches
6. 6. What does Spinoza’s example of twenty men show?

   Men differ from one another in essence A definition does not fix how many things exist, so a plurality needs an external cause The number of men in the world is necessary and eternal, since it follows from God’s nature Human beings are substances in their own right
7. 7. What evidence from early life does Spinoza give for the imitation of emotions?

   Children laugh or cry simply because they see others doing so Children love their parents before they can speak Children fear the dark long before anyone has taught them to fear it Infants refuse milk from strangers until they come to know their faces
8. 8. According to Definition VII, when is a thing called free?

   When it could have acted otherwise than it did, by a free choice of will When it exists and acts by the necessity of its own nature alone When it acts with a definite end in view When no cause whatever, internal or external, determines its existence or action
9. 9. In the note to Prop. I, what happens when we learn the sun’s true distance?

   We can no longer see the sun as small The error is removed, but we still imagine the sun as near The image of a near sun disappears at once We feel pain at our former ignorance
10. 10. What example does Spinoza recall to show that the Stoics admitted controlling the emotions needs practice?

    A house-dog trained to hunt and a hunting-dog trained not to chase hares A wild horse broken to the saddle and bridle by months of patient schooling A child taught to speak a foreign tongue by daily repetition A soldier trained to stand firm in the battle-line under fire
11. 11. Why, according to the note to III.2, do men believe themselves free?

    Because the mind can move the body by its decree, as experience seems to show daily Because they can remember or forget at will Because God has given each of them a free will by which to merit reward or punishment Because they are conscious of their actions but unconscious of their causes
12. 12. According to V.3, when does an emotion that is a passion cease to be a passion?

    Only after the death of the body, when imagination ends When its external cause has been destroyed or removed As soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it When the will, by a firm decision, resolves to suppress it
13. 13. Why does Spinoza decline to count wonder among the emotions?

    It belongs to the body alone and not to the mind, being a mere motion of the animal spirits It arises from the lack of a cause drawing the mind elsewhere, not from a positive cause It is a form of hatred It occurs only in the learned
14. 14. What is the object of the idea that constitutes the human mind?

    All external bodies equally God’s infinite intellect The body, a mode of extension actually existing The soul as an immaterial substance
15. 15. Which three primary emotions does Spinoza recognize?

    Hope, fear and the love of glory Desire, pleasure and pain Love, hatred and the desire for esteem Wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness
16. 16. Why, according to the Appendix to Part I, do men think themselves free?

    They can suspend judgment at will, as Descartes held, and so choose freely God has revealed to them that they are free Reason shows them that their will is uncaused and depends on nothing outside it They are conscious of their desires but ignorant of the causes of them
17. 17. What kind of cause of all things is God, according to Prop. XVIII?

    The remote cause, acting through intermediaries The transient cause, acting from outside things The final cause, for whose sake things exist The indwelling (immanent) cause
18. 18. What does Prop. L say of pity in a man guided by reason?

    It is the same thing as approval It is the root of every virtue It may be excessive but is always good It is in itself bad and useless
19. 19. What example does Spinoza use to illustrate the three kinds of knowledge?

    Finding a fourth proportional to three given numbers Measuring the distance of the sun Distinguishing a horse from a winged horse Proving that the angles of a triangle equal two right angles
20. 20. How does Spinoza explain why a Roman passes from the word “pomum” to the fruit?

    The word resembles the fruit His body has often been affected by the word and the fruit together The intellect perceives the essence of the apple directly in the sound of the word Latin words are natural signs of things
21. 21. What does the single axiom of Part IV state?

    Every thing strives to persist in its being Nothing can be destroyed except by its own nature The whole is greater than its part For any individual thing there is something stronger that can destroy it
22. 22. How does Spinoza use the example of water?

    Water proves that a vacuum exists in nature, since its parts can be separated Water can be divided and destroyed as water, but not as extended substance Water shows that God acts for an end Water is the basic element of all bodies, as the ancient Ionian philosophers held
23. 23. How does Spinoza define substance?

    That which is in itself and is conceived through itself Whatever has extension and can be measured The modifications of something else That which the intellect perceives as constituting an essence
24. 24. What does V.19 say about one who loves God?

    He will love God less as he comes to understand more He cannot want God to love him in return He must hope to be rewarded after death He will hate whoever does not love God
25. 25. Which poet’s words does Spinoza quote to sum up why true knowledge often yields to passion?

    Horace Lucretius Virgil Ovid
26. 26. How, according to Spinoza, do parents commonly incite their children to virtue?

    By the spur of honour and envy By the example of the saints By reasoned argument about their true interest By the fear of divine punishment
27. 27. What is “the first and only foundation of virtue”?

    The effort for self-preservation Obedience to the law of the state The love of one’s neighbour The knowledge of good and evil
28. 28. Whom does Spinoza quote on ambition, observing that philosophers sign their names to books that disparage honour?

    Horace Seneca Ovid Cicero
29. 29. Which common saying does Spinoza say experience confirms, in the note to Prop. XXXV?

    “Man is to man a God” “Nothing in excess” “Man is a wolf to man” “Know thyself”
30. 30. What does the note to III.9 say about the relation between desire and judging something good?

    Only revelation can tell us what is good to desire We deem a thing good because we desire it We desire a thing because we know it to be good Desire and goodness have no connection
31. 31. How does Definition VIII define virtue?

    As the mean between two vices As the same thing as power As self-denial for the sake of others As obedience to God’s commands
32. 32. What does Spinoza call the will of God when it is invoked to end a chain of “why” questions?

    The highest perfection The order of universal nature The sanctuary of ignorance The first and only free cause
33. 33. With what words does the Ethics end?

    All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare The free man thinks of nothing less than of death Freedom is the recognition of necessity God or Nature is all in all
34. 34. According to Prop. LXVII, what does a free man think of least?

    Other men’s faults Wealth Death Honour
35. 35. Where, according to Prop. LXXIII, is a man guided by reason more free?

    In a state under a general system of law In solitude, where he obeys himself alone Among people who share his own religion and rites In the state of nature, where all things are common
36. 36. What example does the note to V.6 give of how knowing that things are necessary lessens emotion?

    No one hates a stone that falls on him No one envies a lion its courage No one mourns the setting of the sun No one pities an infant for being unable to speak, walk or reason
37. 37. With what comparison does Spinoza describe the likeness between a divine intellect and the human intellect?

    The constellation called the Dog and a barking dog A king ruling his realm and a father ruling his household A carpenter and the table he has made with his hands A circle drawn on paper and the true idea of a circle
38. 38. According to Prop. VII, what alone can control or destroy an emotion?

    An act of free will directed by the intellect A true idea of good and evil, simply as true The command of the state, backed by punishment A contrary and stronger emotion
39. 39. What does Part II, Prop. VII state?

    Ideas are copies of images formed in the brain The mind acts on the body through the will The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things Thought and extension are two distinct substances, joined in man through the pineal gland
40. 40. How, according to the preface to Part III, do most writers on the emotions picture man’s place in nature?

    As a machine built by God As a kingdom within a kingdom As a ship without a pilot As a small world mirroring the great one
41. 41. How does the final proposition of the Ethics (V.42) describe blessedness?

    The pleasure that follows controlling our lusts A gift of grace independent of virtue The reward God gives the virtuous after death Not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself
42. 42. In what sense, if any, can a thing be called contingent?

    Only in relation to the imperfection of our knowledge When God has chosen it freely from among alternatives When it follows from a finite cause When its essence involves a contradiction
43. 43. What, according to the Appendix, makes people call objects beautiful?

    They share in an eternal form of beauty which the mind recalls on seeing them They were made by God for human use The motion they communicate to our nerves is conducive to health They have more attributes than other things
44. 44. What does Spinoza call “bondage” at the start of Part IV?

    Human infirmity in checking the emotions The obligation to obey the laws of a state Subjection to the commands of a tyrant or a conqueror The mind’s dependence on the body’s senses
45. 45. How does Spinoza say he will consider human actions and desires?

    As a preacher considers sins to be repented As a historian considers the deeds of famous men As though he were concerned with lines, planes, and solids As a physician considers diseases to be cured
46. 46. According to the Preface, what is a so-called final cause, such as a house’s being lived in?

    An abstract idea with no cause at all The form that nature aims at in every species A goal that God sets for each thing Human desire, mistaken for a purpose
47. 47. Whom does Spinoza cite as compelled by a tyrant to open his own veins?

    Seneca Boethius Cato Socrates
48. 48. How does Spinoza define sin in Note II to Prop. XXXVII?

    As any act that offends God’s nature or his commands As disobedience, which exists only in a state As acting from inadequate ideas instead of adequate ones As any desire that arises from pain rather than pleasure
49. 49. How far away, Spinoza says, do we imagine the sun to be when we look at it?

    About two hundred feet About six hundred diameters of the earth About six hundred feet About a mile
50. 50. Seeing a horse’s tracks in the sand, what will a countryman think of, by contrast with a soldier?

    The sea and fishing A merchant and his wares A plough and a field A horseman and war