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IB Philosophy SL practice questions

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Question 1Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

In Descartes' Meditations, what does substance dualism claim about the mind and the body?

  1. They are two distinct substances, one thinking and one extended. Correct answer.
  2. They are the same substance described in two different vocabularies.
  3. The mind is merely the observable behaviour of the body.
  4. The mind is a bundle of perceptions with no substance of its own.

Explanation

Descartes holds that the mind is res cogitans, a non-extended thinking substance, while the body is res extensa, extended matter. Because their essential attributes differ, they cannot be the same substance. This is the foundation of his substance dualism.

Question 2Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Locke's memory theory holds that personal identity across time depends primarily on what?

  1. The continuity of consciousness and memory. Correct answer.
  2. The numerical continuity of the same living body.
  3. The persistence of the same immaterial soul.
  4. The uninterrupted functioning of the same brain.

Explanation

Locke separates the identity of a person from the identity of a substance or a living body. For him, sameness of person consists in sameness of consciousness, extended backward through memory. A person is therefore the same person insofar as they can remember their past experiences.

Question 3Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Hume's account of the self in A Treatise of Human Nature concludes that the self is which of the following?

  1. A substance that persists beneath all experience.
  2. A bundle of perceptions with no underlying owner. Correct answer.
  3. A social construction produced by language.
  4. A simple, immutable soul known by reason.

Explanation

Hume introspects and finds only particular perceptions, never a separate impression of a simple self. He concludes that the self is nothing but a bundle or collection of perceptions, to which we mistakenly attach an owner. The identity we attribute to the self is thus a fiction produced by imagination.

Question 4Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Sartre's slogan 'existence precedes essence' means that human beings do which of the following?

  1. Are defined by their biological essence before they act.
  2. First exist and then define themselves through their choices. Correct answer.
  3. Can only be understood through their social roles.
  4. Are born with a fixed moral nature they must discover.

Explanation

Sartre denies that humans have a pre-given essence or fixed nature. We first exist, and through our choices we define what we are; hence existence precedes essence. This is why he says humans are condemned to be free and responsible for what they make of themselves.

Question 5Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

The identity theory of mind, or type physicalism, claims which of the following?

  1. Mental states are identical with particular brain states. Correct answer.
  2. Mental states are identical with observable behaviour.
  3. Mental states are useful fictions with no physical basis.
  4. Mental states are non-physical properties that emerge from matter.

Explanation

Type identity theory is a physicalist view: every type of mental state, such as pain, is identical with a type of brain state. It is not merely that mental states are caused by the brain; they are the brain states. This contrasts with dualism and with behaviourism.

Question 6Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Chalmers' philosophical zombie thought experiment is intended to show which of the following?

  1. Physical facts do not logically guarantee consciousness. Correct answer.
  2. We can never know whether other people have minds.
  3. All mental states can be reduced to computational functions.
  4. Zombies are physically impossible because consciousness is necessary for life.

Explanation

Chalmers asks us to conceive of a zombie physically identical to a conscious human but with no inner experience. If this is conceivable, then physical facts do not entail facts about consciousness. He uses the argument to support the claim that consciousness is not logically supervenient on the physical.

Question 7Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

In Frankfurt's account of freedom of the will, a person acts freely when which of the following is true?

  1. No prior causes determine the action at all.
  2. An irresistible desire causes the person to act.
  3. The action is approved by the wider community.
  4. They act on desires they endorse. Correct answer.

Explanation

Frankfurt distinguishes first-order desires from second-order volitions, which are desires about which desires one wants to act on. Freedom of the will consists in the will one acts on being the will one endorses. This allows freedom to be compatible with determinism.

Question 8Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Parfit's reductionism about personal identity implies which of the following?

  1. Personal identity is a further fact over and above psychological continuity.
  2. What matters is psychological connectedness, not identity. Correct answer.
  3. Personal identity is always determinate in fission cases.
  4. Personal identity requires an indivisible soul.

Explanation

Parfit rejects the view that personal identity is a further fact beyond psychological continuity. He argues that what matters in survival is psychological connectedness and continuity, not identity as a separately existing entity. In fission cases identity may be indeterminate, yet what matters is preserved.

Question 9Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Nagel's 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' argues which of the following?

  1. The subjective character of experience escapes physical description. Correct answer.
  2. Bats have no conscious experience because they use echolocation.
  3. Consciousness is identical to information processing.
  4. We can know bat experience by imagining flying and catching insects.

Explanation

Nagel argues that an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism. Physical descriptions tell us about structure and function but leave out the subjective character of experience. Imagining bat experience from our own point of view does not give us the bat's point of view.

Question 10Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Compatibilism about free will and determinism holds which of the following?

  1. Moral responsibility requires the absence of all causes.
  2. No one can be morally responsible in a deterministic world.
  3. Freedom coexists with determinism when actions express one's desires. Correct answer.
  4. Determinism is false because quantum events are random.

Explanation

Compatibilists hold that determinism does not rule out freedom, because freedom should be understood as acting from one's own desires and character rather than as exemption from causality. On this view, people can be morally responsible in a deterministic world. The position is opposed to libertarian and hard-determinist accounts.

Question 11Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

For Aristotle, the soul (psyche) is best understood as which of the following?

  1. The form of a living body Correct answer.
  2. The same thing as the physical brain
  3. A bundle of perceptions united by memory
  4. An immaterial substance housed in the body

Explanation

Aristotle's hylomorphism treats soul and body as form and matter rather than as two separable substances. The soul is the organizing actuality of a living organism, so it is not a Cartesian substance that can exist apart from the body.

Question 12Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

In Sartre's existentialism, a person who insists that her social role completely defines her is said to be in bad faith because she does which of the following?

  1. Recognizes that her facticity limits her freedom
  2. Denies that other people exist as subjects
  3. Accepts moral responsibility for her choices
  4. Treats herself as a fixed object Correct answer.

Explanation

Bad faith is self-deception in which a person denies the freedom that belongs to consciousness. By identifying wholly with a role, she treats herself as an object with a fixed essence rather than as a free project.

Question 13Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

If hard determinism is true, what is its usual implication for moral responsibility?

  1. Moral responsibility is compatible with causal determinism
  2. Moral responsibility requires only voluntary bodily movement
  3. Moral responsibility is strengthened because causes explain actions
  4. Moral responsibility is undermined because alternatives are impossible Correct answer.

Explanation

Hard determinism combines determinism with the claim that free will is incompatible with it. Since agents never genuinely could have done otherwise, it denies the kind of control usually required for moral responsibility.

Question 14Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

According to functionalism in philosophy of mind, a mental state such as pain is individuated by which of the following?

  1. Its causal role in the system Correct answer.
  2. The specific brain tissue in which it occurs
  3. The raw feel or qualia that accompanies it
  4. The behavior it produces in a single organism

Explanation

Functionalism defines mental states by what they do rather than by what they are made of. Pain, for example, is a state caused by damage and causing avoidance, and it could be realized in different physical substrates.

Question 15Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Reid's 'brave officer' example is designed to show that Locke's memory criterion of personal identity fails because it does which of the following?

  1. Makes bodily continuity the only criterion
  2. Violates the transitivity of identity across time Correct answer.
  3. Denies that forgetting ever occurs
  4. Relies on the existence of an immaterial soul

Explanation

In Reid's example the general remembers being an officer and the officer remembers being a boy, but the general does not remember being the boy. On the memory criterion the general is identical with the officer and the officer with the boy, while the general is not identical with the boy, which breaks transitivity.

Question 16Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Animalism, as a theory of personal identity, holds that you persist over time just in case which of the following is true?

  1. The human organism remains alive Correct answer.
  2. Your memories form a continuous chain
  3. Your personality traits remain largely unchanged
  4. Your immaterial soul remains the same substance

Explanation

Animalism says we are essentially biological organisms, so personal identity follows the life of the organism rather than psychological continuity. You could survive severe memory loss on this view as long as the same living human animal persists.

Question 17Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Agent-causation libertarianism holds that a free action is caused by which of the following?

  1. A deterministic chain of prior events
  2. A random quantum event in the brain
  3. The agent as an uncaused cause Correct answer.
  4. The strongest preceding desire

Explanation

Agent-causation posits the agent as an uncaused cause of action, not merely as one event in a causal sequence. It is meant to secure free will and responsibility without reducing free action to desires or neural randomness.

Question 18Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Ricoeur's concept of narrative identity suggests that a person's identity is primarily which of the following?

  1. A fixed essence given at birth
  2. The mere continuity of a biological organism
  3. A bundle of sensations with no unity
  4. A revised story of one's life Correct answer.

Explanation

Narrative identity treats selfhood as constituted through stories that integrate past, present, and projected future. It is dynamic and interpretive rather than a static substance or a mere sequence of impressions.

Question 19Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Eliminative materialists such as Paul Churchland argue that which of the following is most likely?

  1. Mental states are defined by their causal functional roles
  2. Consciousness cannot in principle be explained by physical science
  3. Mental states are strictly identical with particular brain states
  4. Beliefs and desires do not really exist Correct answer.

Explanation

Eliminative materialism is more radical than identity theory: it denies that the categories of folk psychology refer to real internal states. As neuroscience matures, talk of beliefs and desires may be abandoned rather than reduced.

Question 20Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

In Parfit's fission thought experiment, what problem does the case create for the claim that personal identity is what matters in survival?

  1. It proves that bodily continuity is necessary for personal identity
  2. It shows that determinism is true
  3. Two successors are equally continuous with the original Correct answer.
  4. It shows that memory is irrelevant to survival

Explanation

In fission the original person's psychological life branches into two successors, each continuous with the original. Since identity cannot hold one-to-one with both, Parfit argues that what matters is psychological connectedness rather than identity itself.

Question 21Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Boethius's classic definition of a person, much cited in later debates about being human, identifies a person as which of the following?

  1. a bundle of perceptions united by custom and imagination
  2. an individual substance of a rational nature Correct answer.
  3. a rational substance constituted by memory of its past
  4. a thinking thing that doubts, understands and wills

Explanation

Boethius defines a person as 'an individual substance of a rational nature' (naturae rationalis individua substantia). This makes rationality the defining mark of personhood and treats the person as a kind of substance, a framework later contested by Locke's memory criterion and Hume's bundle theory.

Question 22Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Gilbert Ryle's phrase 'the ghost in the machine' is used to criticise which view of the human being?

  1. Descartes' substance dualism, which treats mind and body as distinct substances Correct answer.
  2. Functionalism, which identifies mental states with their causal-functional roles
  3. Hume's bundle theory, which denies that any persisting self exists over time
  4. Behaviourism, which explains all talk of mental states as dispositions to behave in certain ways

Explanation

Ryle's phrase labels the Cartesian picture of a non-physical mind inhabiting a physical body as a 'category mistake'. He argues that mental vocabulary describes dispositions and capacities of the whole person, not a hidden inner substance.

Question 23Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Spinoza's account of the relationship between mind and body is best described as which of the following?

  1. Dual-aspect monism: one substance with two attributes, thought and extension Correct answer.
  2. Substance dualism, since thought and extension are two distinct kinds of substance
  3. Idealism, since only minds and their ideas ultimately exist and nothing else
  4. Eliminative materialism, since everyday mental vocabulary will be replaced by mature neuroscience

Explanation

For Spinoza there is only one substance, which can be conceived under the attributes of thought and extension. Mind and body are therefore two aspects of the same thing rather than two distinct substances.

Question 24Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

For Kant, the claim that the 'I think' must be able to accompany all my representations expresses which claim about the self?

  1. The self is the formal unity of consciousness that makes experience possible Correct answer.
  2. The self is a substance whose essence is pure memory
  3. The self is a physical object known through inner sense alone
  4. The self is a bundle of perceptions with no unifying principle

Explanation

Kant's 'I think' expresses the transcendental unity of apperception: a formal condition that must be able to accompany any representation for experience to be unified and mine. It does not give knowledge of the self as a substance; the self as it is in itself remains unknowable.

Question 25Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

P. F. Strawson's account of 'persons' in Individuals is distinctive because it holds which of the following?

  1. Persons are logical constructions out of bundles of perceptions and memories
  2. Personhood is a matter of possessing a self-narrative that others can recognise and endorse
  3. Persons are immaterial souls temporarily attached to physical bodies during life
  4. The concept of a person is primitive, ascribing physical and mental predicates to one entity Correct answer.

Explanation

Strawson treats 'person' as a primitive concept in his descriptive metaphysics: one and the same entity is legitimately described with both physical (M) and mental (P) predicates. He thus rejects both the dualist's two entities and the reductionist's construction out of simpler items.

Question 26Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Searle's Chinese Room argument is intended to establish which conclusion about a computer that manipulates symbols according to formal rules?

  1. Syntax is not sufficient for semantics, so symbol manipulation is not understanding Correct answer.
  2. Neither syntax nor semantics can be achieved by any machine
  3. Both syntax and semantics can be achieved by a sufficiently complex program
  4. Semantics can be achieved without syntax if the program is embodied

Explanation

Searle argues that the room's occupant manipulates Chinese symbols by formal rules without understanding Chinese, so the system has syntax but no semantics. Running a program therefore cannot by itself produce understanding or intentionality.

Question 27Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

In Sartre's analysis of 'the look' (le regard), what happens to me when I am caught by another's gaze?

  1. I become a subject while the other becomes an object for me
  2. I experience the other as a physical body with no consciousness at all
  3. I experience myself as an object for the other, and my freedom is threatened Correct answer.
  4. I recognise the other as a free subject like myself

Explanation

For Sartre, the Other's gaze objectifies me: I am fixed as an object with determinate qualities, and my free transcendence is curtailed. This is the structure of 'being-for-others', which cannot be reduced to either pure subjecthood or pure objecthood.

Question 28Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

P. F. Strawson's 'Freedom and Resentment' argues that holding someone morally responsible is grounded in which of the following?

  1. The social utility of punishing wrongdoers, regardless of their attitudes
  2. The metaphysical fact that the person could have done otherwise in a contra-causal sense
  3. The agent's ability to construct a narrative that justifies their action
  4. The reactive attitudes we naturally adopt in interpersonal relationships Correct answer.

Explanation

Strawson argues that our practice of holding people responsible is expressed in reactive attitudes such as resentment, gratitude and indignation. These attitudes are grounded in interpersonal relationships rather than in a metaphysical fact about contra-causal freedom.

Question 29Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Merleau-Ponty's notion of the 'lived body' (corps vécu) is meant to overcome which traditional opposition in the philosophy of being human?

  1. The opposition between reason and emotion, by identifying the self with pre-reflective, habitual bodily feeling and action
  2. The opposition between freedom and determinism, by denying that human beings ever act on reasons they endorse
  3. The opposition between self and other, by denying that we can ever have knowledge of other minds at all
  4. The split between inner mind and outer body, treating the body as our way of being in the world Correct answer.

Explanation

Merleau-Ponty rejects the Cartesian split by describing the body not as an object I possess but as the subject's lived mode of being in the world. Perception is pre-reflective and enacted through the body, so 'inner' mind and 'outer' body are not two separate realms.

Question 30Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Nietzsche's claim that 'there is no being behind doing... the doer is merely a fiction added to the deed' challenges which assumption about the self?

  1. That a substantial, persisting agent stands behind and causes our actions Correct answer.
  2. That personal identity depends on memory of past experiences, as Locke held
  3. That human beings are essentially embodied rather than purely mental subjects
  4. That mental states are identical with, or reducible to, brain states

Explanation

Nietzsche claims that the grammar of subject and predicate leads us to posit a doer behind the deed, but no such substantial agent is given. The 'I' is a fiction superimposed on a process of acting and becoming, undermining the idea of a persisting self that causes its actions.

Question 31Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Descartes' substance dualism in the philosophy of mind is committed to which claim about the human being?

  1. The self is only a bundle of perceptions.
  2. Consciousness is an emergent feature of matter.
  3. Mind and body are distinct interacting substances. Correct answer.
  4. Mental states are identical with brain states.

Explanation

Descartes distinguishes thinking substance (res cogitans) from extended substance (res extensa), so the human being is a union of two distinct kinds of substance. He also holds that they interact, which generates the classic interaction problem for dualism. The other options describe identity theory, Humean bundle theory, and emergentism.

Question 32Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Hume's account of personal identity famously concludes that the self is which of the following?

  1. A bundle of perceptions with no owner. Correct answer.
  2. A simple and unchanging soul.
  3. A continuous memory chain anchored in a body.
  4. A narrative constructed by others.

Explanation

Hume finds only particular perceptions when he introspects and no impression of a simple, persisting self. He concludes that personal identity is a fiction produced by imagination, which mistakenly attributes unity to a bundle of perceptions. This differs from soul-substance, memory, and narrative accounts.

Question 33Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Which of the following best captures the thesis of epiphenomenalism?

  1. Mental events cause physical events from another substance.
  2. Mental events are identical to brain events.
  3. Mental events are inert by-products of physical events. Correct answer.
  4. Mental events are dispositions to behave in certain ways.

Explanation

Epiphenomenalism says physical events cause mental events, but mental events do not cause anything in return. Mental states are therefore causal by-products or 'epiphenomena' of brain activity. It is distinct from interactionism, identity theory, and behaviourism.

Question 34Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Leibniz's mill argument is intended to show which of the following about perception?

  1. Machines can never move their parts in regular ways.
  2. Mechanical inspection cannot reveal conscious perception. Correct answer.
  3. A machine's parts could together produce conscious perception.
  4. Perception can be fully explained by the arrangement of parts.

Explanation

Leibniz asks us to imagine entering a machine capable of thought and perception; inspecting its parts would reveal only mechanical motions, not perception. He uses this to argue that perception cannot be explained by extension and mechanism alone. The point is not that machines cannot move regularly or that parts could produce consciousness.

Question 35Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

The knowledge argument, illustrated by Jackson's Mary case, challenges physicalism by claiming that which of the following is true?

  1. Complete physical knowledge leaves out what experience is like. Correct answer.
  2. Experiences are identical to the brain states that cause them.
  3. Facts about experience are not knowable by anyone.
  4. Physical facts exhaust all facts about experience.

Explanation

Jackson's Mary knows every physical fact about colour vision while confined to a black-and-white room. When she first sees red, she learns what red experience is like, which suggests physical knowledge is incomplete. The argument targets physicalism, not the knowability of experience in general.

Question 36Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

In the free will debate, compatibilism holds that which of the following is possible?

  1. Freedom and determinism can both hold for actions. Correct answer.
  2. Freedom requires exemption from every causal chain.
  3. Determinism is false because people sometimes act freely.
  4. Moral responsibility disappears entirely if determinism is true.

Explanation

Compatibilism holds that determinism may be true and that freedom and moral responsibility can still be real. Freedom is analysed as acting according to one's own desires without external coercion, not as being uncaused. It opposes both libertarianism and hard determinism.

Question 37Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Frankfurt cases are designed to challenge which principle in the free will debate?

  1. The principle of double effect in ethics.
  2. The principle of alternative possibilities. Correct answer.
  3. The principle of sufficient reason.
  4. The harm principle in political philosophy.

Explanation

Frankfurt cases describe an agent who acts on his own desires while a counterfactual intervener would have forced him if he had wavered. Since he could not have done otherwise but is still responsible, the principle of alternative possibilities is challenged. The other principles concern explanation, harm, and double effect, not free will.

Question 38Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Block's 'China brain' thought experiment is used to argue that which of the following may be true?

  1. Functional organization is sufficient for experience.
  2. Function may not suffice for consciousness. Correct answer.
  3. Mental states are identical to brain states.
  4. Consciousness is nothing over and above behaviour.

Explanation

Block imagines the population of China arranged to mimic the functional organization of a brain. If functionalism were true, that system should be conscious, but intuitively it is not, so functional organization may not be sufficient for experience. The example does not establish identity theory, behaviourism, or eliminativism.

Question 39Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Kim's exclusion argument threatens non-reductive physicalism by claiming which of the following?

  1. Mental properties cannot be studied by science at all.
  2. Mental properties are excluded by physical causes. Correct answer.
  3. Mental properties are identical with physical properties.
  4. Mental properties are the only real causes of behaviour.

Explanation

Kim's exclusion argument says that if every physical event has a sufficient physical cause, then mental properties add no causal work and are excluded. This threatens non-reductive physicalism, which wants mental properties to be real and causally efficacious. It does not claim that mental properties are identical with physical properties or that science cannot study them.

Question 40Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Nagel's question 'What is it like to be a bat?' is used primarily to argue which of the following?

  1. That human beings can never know anything about bats.
  2. That bats have no conscious experience at all.
  3. That objective physical accounts omit subjective experience. Correct answer.
  4. That consciousness is identical to brain activity.

Explanation

Nagel argues that conscious experience has a subjective character: there is something it is like to be the organism. Objective physical descriptions capture facts from no particular point of view and therefore leave out that subjective character. He does not deny bat experience or claim total ignorance about bats.

Question 41Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the distinctively human function (ergon) that grounds the good life is best identified as which of the following?

  1. activity of the rational part of the soul Correct answer.
  2. the acquisition of political power
  3. the growth and nutrition shared with plants
  4. the pursuit of pleasure through the senses

Explanation

Aristotle argues that the human good is activity of the soul in accordance with reason, since nutrition and perception are not distinctive of humans. The rational function is what uniquely characterizes human life and provides the standard for flourishing.

Question 42Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Descartes's cogito ('I think, therefore I am') is intended to establish which claim about the human being?

  1. The human being is essentially a union of a material body and an immaterial soul.
  2. The thinking self's existence cannot be doubted even if the body can be. Correct answer.
  3. The self is a bundle of perceptions with no underlying substance.
  4. The human being is a social animal constituted by language.

Explanation

Descartes's methodological doubt can suspend belief in body and world, but the act of doubting is itself thinking, and a thinker must exist. The cogito establishes the self as a thinking thing, not yet as a union with body.

Question 43Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Sartre's slogan 'existence precedes essence' is intended to claim which of the following?

  1. Human identity is determined by biological inheritance.
  2. Humans first exist and then define themselves by choosing. Correct answer.
  3. Social roles exhaust what a person is.
  4. Human beings are born with a fixed rational nature that determines their ends.

Explanation

For Sartre, humans have no pre-given essence or fixed nature; they exist first and become what they are through free projects. This is the core of his existentialist humanism.

Question 44Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Locke's example of the prince's consciousness entering the cobbler's body is designed to show which of the following?

  1. Personal identity is determined by the body's physical continuity.
  2. Personal identity is irrelevant to moral responsibility.
  3. Personal identity depends on the continuity of an immaterial substance.
  4. Personal identity follows continuity of consciousness, not bodily substance. Correct answer.

Explanation

Locke treats 'person' as a forensic term tied to continuity of consciousness: if the prince's consciousness informs the cobbler's body, the person is the prince. Bodily continuity alone does not make the same person.

Question 45Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

For Marx, what distinguishes human productive activity from the activity of animals is that humans do which of the following?

  1. labour only to satisfy biological needs
  2. are isolated individuals who contract with one another
  3. produce freely and consciously, not only under immediate need Correct answer.
  4. are driven by instinct to build nests and hives

Explanation

Marx distinguishes human species-activity by its free, conscious character: humans can produce beyond immediate need and according to an idea. Animals produce only what their species-instinct requires.

Question 46Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Simone de Beauvoir's claim that 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' is best understood as which of the following?

  1. a claim that womanhood is fixed at birth by immutable biological causes
  2. a defence of biological determinism about gender roles
  3. an existentialist claim that gender is shaped by situation and choices Correct answer.
  4. a denial that biological sex exists

Explanation

Beauvoir applies the existentialist thesis that existence precedes essence: one becomes a woman through socialization, situation, and choices rather than through a fixed feminine nature. This does not deny biological sex but denies that it dictates gendered identity.

Question 47Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Heidegger describes Dasein as 'being-toward-death.' Which claim best captures this idea?

  1. Death is something Dasein can experience indirectly by observing others.
  2. Death is Dasein's ownmost possibility, which individualizes it. Correct answer.
  3. Death is a biological fact that belongs equally to every entity in the world.
  4. Death is an event that happens to Dasein only at the end and has no bearing on life.

Explanation

For Heidegger, death is the possibility that is ownmost and non-relational; no one can die my death for me. Anticipating it can individualize Dasein and call it to authentic existence.

Question 48Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

The Buddhist doctrine of anatta (no-self) holds which of the following?

  1. A person is a changing bundle of aggregates, with no permanent self. Correct answer.
  2. The self is a fictional story told by society with no causal role.
  3. The self is identical with the body and perishes at death.
  4. The self is an unchanging spiritual substance that persists through rebirth.

Explanation

Anatta denies a permanent, unchanging self or atman. A person is conventionally designated as a bundle of changing aggregates, and continuity is causal and psychological rather than substantial.

Question 49Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Parfit's examples of division and gradual replacement are used to support which conclusion?

  1. Personal identity requires strict sameness of a soul-substance.
  2. Memory is irrelevant to survival.
  3. A person cannot survive any change in body or brain.
  4. Psychological continuity, not identity, is what ultimately matters. Correct answer.

Explanation

Parfit argues that identity is not all-or-nothing and is not what matters in survival. Psychological continuity and connectedness can hold without strict identity, as in fission cases, so they are what matter.

Question 50Core theme: Being Human (compulsory)

Butler's account of gender performativity claims that gender is which of the following?

  1. repeated stylized acts that produce the illusion of an inner core Correct answer.
  2. determined entirely by chromosomes and hormones
  3. a stable inner essence expressed through outward behaviour
  4. a private choice made once and then fixed for life

Explanation

Butler argues that gender is produced through repeated stylized acts regulated by social norms, creating the illusion of an inner gender core. Performativity is not a single voluntary choice but a forced repetition.