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WorksheetsA Few Big Picture Points
Total questions: 46
Worksheet time: 23mins
In Kierkegaard’s Either/Or II, why are letters thematically significant to the ethical voice?
They are intimate, personal, and foster inwardness
They are public, official, and enforce authority
They are playful, ironic, and favor detachment
They are poetic, ornate, and celebrate aesthetics
Which statement best captures the role of love in Kierkegaard’s existential perspective presented in Either/Or II?
Love opens the individual toward the other person
Love isolates the individual from social duties
Love functions mainly as aesthetic pleasure
Love is irrelevant to ethical commitment
Which quotation aligns with Kierkegaard’s emphasis on love’s value for human life?
Loving people is the only thing worth living for
Knowledge is the only thing worth living for
Power is the only thing worth living for
Autonomy is the only thing worth living for
In the contrast between A and B’s concepts of freedom, which characterization matches B?
Not free from care, but free from need and responsive to others
Free from care, carefree, manipulating others at will
Free from all constraints, indifferent to other persons
Free only when isolated, detached from relationships
What best describes the ethical project of becoming a self in Either/Or II?
Becoming oneself through choice and freedom
Achieving selfhood by aesthetic contemplation
Attaining selfhood by avoiding commitments
Finding the self through external conformity
Which claim best states why marriage has aesthetic validity in Kierkegaard’s account?
It fulfills and sustains love through time
It guarantees social respect and stability
It eliminates conflict between spouses entirely
It replaces ethical duty with personal pleasure
Judge Vilhelm calls marriage “the most beautiful task set for a person” because the central task is to do what?
Preserve love in time through commitment
Discover new partners to renew passion
Avoid despair by rejecting obligations
Achieve status and legal recognition
In criticizing the aesthete “A,” which trait is emphasized by Judge Vilhelm?
He is egoistic and views life in despair
He is communal and celebrates marriage
He is faithful and grounded in reality
He is disciplined and duty-centered
What does it mean that the aesthete “lives in the subjunctive”?
He dwells in possibilities over actual commitments
He communicates strictly in hypothetical grammar
He avoids beauty to focus on pure ethics
He believes fate controls every decision
How does marital love relate to romantic first love in this account?
First love is preserved and repeatedly rejuvenated
First love is replaced by routine and duty
First love disappears as passion fades
First love must be forgotten to mature
Which statement captures the essence of marriage in this view?
Its essence is love bearing the mark of eternity
Its essence is contract ensuring legal security
Its essence is habit creating household efficiency
Its essence is reproduction sustaining the species
What does it mean that marriage has its teleology “in itself”?
Marriage’s purpose is intrinsic rather than instrumental
Marriage’s purpose is to advance social economics
Marriage’s purpose is to regulate sexual conduct
Marriage’s purpose is to teach civic obedience
Which forms of marriage does Judge Vilhelm explicitly reject as unaesthetic and immoral?
Civil convenience and socio-economic arrangements
Freely chosen unions grounded in love
Vows oriented to preserving love in time
Commitments with intrinsic ends of partnership
Which feature best distinguishes romantic love in Kierkegaard’s contrast?
Sensuous and immediate, centered on enjoyment
Possessing and appropriative, requiring constancy
Bound by duty and future-oriented commitment
Lived through repeated realization in daily life
In the contrast, marital love is said to have which kind of history?
Inner history where every moment is significant
Outer history of minor significance
Mythic history portrayed poetically
No history because it is timeless
What does Kierkegaard claim about time in marital love?
Time has great reality, demanding faithfulness
Time is illusory, ignored by commitment
Time is conquered through aesthetic pleasure
Time shortens as passion intensifies
Which statement captures the ‘eternal validity’ of marital love?
It continues in time without end, requiring will
It ends when passion fades, regardless of will
It varies with place and season, not commitment
It rests on inspiration rather than determination
According to the material, which is true of romantic love but not marital love?
It can be portrayed poetically or artistically
It requires virtues sustained by duty
It is preserved by repeated daily realization
It treats every moment as ethically decisive
Which line sums up the task of married love?
To preserve love in time despite challenges
To conquer desires through aesthetic conquest
To escape history by living in the moment
To seek novelty beyond habitual repetition
What does the phrase “married love has its enemy in time” most nearly mean?
Time threatens fidelity and constancy
Time guarantees passion and spontaneity
Time erases duty and obligation
Time liberates lovers from promise
Which best describes duty’s role in marital love for Kierkegaard?
Duty enjoins loving sincerely but cannot coerce
Duty replaces love with legal obligation
Duty ensures poetic expression of passion
Duty removes the need for daily struggle
Which claim about romantic love aligns with Kierkegaard’s aesthetic life view?
It strives to conquer what it lacks
It appropriates and constantly acquires
It determines the will toward constancy
It lives eternity through repetition
Why can marital love not be portrayed poetically, according to the contrast?
It must be lived by continual repetition
It lacks any inner meaning or depth
It exists only in fleeting sensations
It depends entirely on public ceremonies
Which best captures the aim of the philosophy of Either/Or in this section?
A plea for meaningful choice in life
A defense of detached irony in art
A method for logical certainty in ethics
A call to reject freedom for order
In this context, what is called the "unifying power of personality"?
The most holy thing within a person
The capacity for aesthetic enjoyment
The ability to follow social customs
The rational faculty of pure reason
How does A’s version of either/or primarily function?
It amounts to no genuine choice at all
It designates a moral dilemma of duties
It describes stages of faith and reason
It resolves conflicts through compromise
Vilhelm’s either/or emphasizes that choice is
Crucial for forming the personality
Secondary to pleasure and detachment
Irrelevant to the self’s development
Only about picking good over evil
Which statement aligns with the claim that "an aesthetic choice is no choice"?
Selecting by mood does not bind the self
Choosing beauty commits one to virtue
Preferring art over ethics ensures freedom
Following taste always deepens identity
According to Vilhelm, through choosing the personality
Submerges itself in what is chosen
Separates itself from all commitments
Avoids any relation to the chosen
Suspends identity to remain neutral
Which best describes the “absolute either/or” discussed here?
Between choosing or not choosing at all
Between pleasure and responsibility only
Between good actions and evil actions
Between faith and rational knowledge
What is the role of passion (pathos) in choice for personality development?
It provides energy consolidating personality
It distracts from rational ethical duty
It dissolves commitments into indifference
It proves that all choices are arbitrary
The phrase “My either/or does not denote in the first instance the choice between good and evil” implies that the primary issue is
Choosing to choose rather than what is chosen
Selecting strict moral rules over pleasure
Determining divine law before personal will
Avoiding decision to maintain flexibility
Within this framework, becoming a self is best understood as
An ethical process expressed through freedom
A biological maturation free of decisions
A passive reflection of social relations
A purely aesthetic cultivation of taste
Which claim best contrasts A and Vilhelm on either/or?
A denies real choice; Vilhelm affirms decisive choice
A requires duty; Vilhelm recommends pleasure
A values commitment; Vilhelm rejects obligation
A praises freedom; Vilhelm forbids autonomy
What does it mean that the individual self has “eternal validity” in this context?
Its ethical identity does not vary with circumstances
Its tastes remain fashionable across generations
Its social roles stay fixed by tradition
Its reasoning aligns with scientific consensus
In Kierkegaard’s terms, how does the ethical relate to the aesthetic in a well‑developed personality?
It suppresses the aesthetic entirely and rejects pleasure
It transfigures the aesthetic without destroying its significance
It ignores the aesthetic as irrelevant to moral life
It alternates between aesthetic and ethical without synthesis
What inner capacity is necessary to live ethically in this framework?
Self-forgetfulness and detachment from experience
Self-consciousness and transparency to oneself
Spontaneous emotion without reflection
External conformity to social expectations
Which statement best captures the self-determining aspect of choice emphasized here?
Choice fixes fate independent of personal history
Choice acquires values and a history structuring experience
Choice eliminates the burden of responsibility entirely
Choice guarantees aesthetic satisfaction in every case
According to this account, what is the outcome of ethical choice for personal identity?
One becomes fragmented by competing desires
One acquires oneself and becomes what one becomes
One remains unchanged despite repeated decisions
One dissolves individuality into social roles
According to Judge Vilhelm, why is the aesthete’s choice considered no real choice?
Options lack moral weight and meaning
Options are too numerous to evaluate
Options are predetermined by society
Options are identical in practical outcomes
What key criticism does Judge Vilhelm level against A’s position regarding values?
It promotes moral indifference and no good or evil
It overemphasizes duty at the expense of joy
It confuses legal norms with ethical norms
It assumes universal values are self-evident
In Vilhelm’s view, what does the aesthete lack that prevents genuine selfhood?
An ethically constituted framework for experience
A robust sense of aesthetic taste
A supportive community of friends
A thorough understanding of theology
Which statement best captures Vilhelm’s claim about the aesthete’s identity over time?
The aesthete has no history and no true self
The aesthete matures through reflective repetition
The aesthete preserves identity through habits
The aesthete strengthens selfhood via detachment
Why does Vilhelm urge one to ‘choose despair’?
To confront the self and accept responsibility
To reject all commitments permanently
To attain pleasure without consequences
To escape anxiety through distraction
What follows from choosing despair, as described by Vilhelm?
Acceptance of freedom and responsibility
Return to moral indifference and drift
Fusion with societal expectations alone
Elimination of all personal desires
In saying “I choose the absolute, which is myself in my eternal validity,” what is affirmed through despair?
Becoming a self by owning who I will become
Securing external approval as the highest good
Abandoning ethical commitments for spontaneity
Erasing individuality to merge with the crowd
