Dealing with oppressed people
1- DeBeauvoir describes ‘the adventurer’ and they appear to share some characteristics in common with the free human. Where does ‘the adventurer’ go wrong in DeBeauvoir’s analysis?
2- What is “bad faith” and how does De Beauvoir guard against it?
3- Why does De Beauvoir stress situated freedom in the case of oppressed peoples? What attitude is appropriate when dealing with severely oppressed people and what is De Beauvoir’s argument for why this is the appropriate attitude?
4- For Levinas, what is the problem with most existing manners of thinking identity? How does thinking in terms of autrui avoid these problems?
5- What is meant by Levinas’ statement that the essence of discourse is prayer?
6- For De Beauvoir, what is the connection between the attitudes of “seriousness” and “nihilism”? Additionally, what does De Beauvoir maintain is the shortcoming of each attitude?
7- Towards the conclusion of the text, de Beauvoir speaks at length of the Cause. What distinguishes a good or worthy cause from a bad one?
8- Why does Royce hold that we must choose our cause knowingly if we’re able, ignorantly if we must? We can’t we just wait until we have knowledge before choosing a cause?
9- Why does Royce hold that an ethical individual must have loyalty to a cause?
10- For DeBeauvoir, how do children acquire their values initially? Upon reaching maturity what happens to their sense of inherited values?
11- What sort of objection might De Beauvoir or Royce raise in response to Nietzsche’s ‘ethics’ of power? For these thinkers, what would be a problem with rooting ethics in power?
12- For Royce, how is loyalty a self-reinstating principle?
13- DeBeauvoir identifies the sub-man and the serious man as two possible ways of responding when our values are called into question. Describe each of these responses.
14- For Royce, what happens to the individual when they don’t have a cause to which they are loyal?
15- Royce holds that our duty is to do what we really will? If this is the case, how can we fail to get what we want?