PhB Bachelor of Philosophy Bachelor of Philosophy: The Meaning of Life 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Albert Camus argued that the 'absurd' arises from the conflict between what two things?
- Human reason and divine will
- Human desire for meaning and the universe's silence (Correct answer)
- Life and death
- Freedom and determinism
Correct answer: Human desire for meaning and the universe's silence
Camus held that absurdity emerges from the clash between humanity's insistence on meaning and the world's indifferent, irrational silence.
Question 2: In Aristotle's ethics, 'eudaimonia' is best translated as:
- Pleasure
- Duty
- Flourishing or well-being (Correct answer)
- Virtue alone
Correct answer: Flourishing or well-being
Eudaimonia refers to a life of flourishing achieved through the exercise of virtues and rational activity, not merely pleasure.
Question 3: Which philosopher famously claimed that 'God is dead' and diagnosed nihilism as a cultural crisis?
- Søren Kierkegaard
- Arthur Schopenhauer
- Friedrich Nietzsche (Correct answer)
- Martin Heidegger
Correct answer: Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche declared 'God is dead' to signal the collapse of absolute values in modernity and warned of the resulting nihilistic void.
Question 4: Hedonism as a theory of the meaning of life holds that life is meaningful insofar as it contains:
- Moral virtue
- Pleasure and the absence of pain (Correct answer)
- Achievement of objective goals
- Relationships with others
Correct answer: Pleasure and the absence of pain
Hedonism identifies pleasure (and the minimization of pain) as the sole intrinsic good that makes life worth living.
Question 5: The 'experience machine' thought experiment by Robert Nozick is designed to challenge which view?
- Virtue ethics
- Hedonism (Correct answer)
- Nihilism
- Existentialism
Correct answer: Hedonism
Nozick's experience machine argues that if pleasure were all that mattered, we would plug in—yet most people wouldn't, suggesting other things have intrinsic value.
Question 6: Which approach holds that life's meaning is conferred by an individual's own authentic choices and projects, not by external standards?
- Divine command theory
- Objective list theory
- Subjectivism / existentialism (Correct answer)
- Natural law theory
Correct answer: Subjectivism / existentialism
Subjectivist and existentialist accounts locate meaning in the agent's own authentic engagement, commitments, and self-creation.
Question 7: Thomas Nagel's essay 'The Absurd' differs from Camus's treatment because Nagel argues we should respond to absurdity with:
- Revolt and defiance
- Suicide
- Irony and equanimity (Correct answer)
- Religious faith
Correct answer: Irony and equanimity
Unlike Camus's heroic revolt, Nagel recommends a stance of ironic detachment as the appropriate response to life's inherent absurdity.
PhB Bachelor of Philosophy Bachelor of Philosophy: The Meaning of Life 2
Albert Camus argued that the 'absurd' arises from the conflict between what two things?