YourMorals
Sep. 23rd, 2007 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ironymaidenlethargy leads to reading the NY Times and napping. there's an article about the origins of morality and a researcher who is doing work on morality based on five forms: (prevention of)harm, fairness, in-group, authority, and purity. he has a website where you can quiz yourself and become a statistic, called YourMorals.Org.
it's as fun as doing any webquiz, but you can also feel all self-satisfied that you're timewasting for science. (no blog code, alas.) it's certainly interesting to compare myself to others who have identified themselves as "liberal" or "conservative". i don't feel particularly confident about the theses or the structure of all the tests.
the one that strikes me as the most strained is one where you are asked to rate what you would like or dislike in your pet of choice. i scored high on "purity" because i would not like to have a dog that humps my leg, and i think a tendency towards cleanliness in my pet's habits is favorable. hopefully they actually run the various quiz data together since it becomes apparent that the high purity score is an anomaly. pets aren't people. the traits that are favorable or tolerable in humans are undesirable in animal companions. i don't want a pet to have the same sexual freedom or even intelligence that i desire in a human. smart pets are a holy terror unless you are willing to give them a tremendous amount of time and attention.
OTOH, there's a fun one where you read a paragraph describing an ethical dilemma and then answer four questions. the dilemmas vary, but the questions remain the same. do you respond to the ethical question the same way each time, or are your responses colored by your moral/political stances?
oh, and i am more psychopathic than the average bear. or i admit to it, which i think is something again.
it's as fun as doing any webquiz, but you can also feel all self-satisfied that you're timewasting for science. (no blog code, alas.) it's certainly interesting to compare myself to others who have identified themselves as "liberal" or "conservative". i don't feel particularly confident about the theses or the structure of all the tests.
the one that strikes me as the most strained is one where you are asked to rate what you would like or dislike in your pet of choice. i scored high on "purity" because i would not like to have a dog that humps my leg, and i think a tendency towards cleanliness in my pet's habits is favorable. hopefully they actually run the various quiz data together since it becomes apparent that the high purity score is an anomaly. pets aren't people. the traits that are favorable or tolerable in humans are undesirable in animal companions. i don't want a pet to have the same sexual freedom or even intelligence that i desire in a human. smart pets are a holy terror unless you are willing to give them a tremendous amount of time and attention.
OTOH, there's a fun one where you read a paragraph describing an ethical dilemma and then answer four questions. the dilemmas vary, but the questions remain the same. do you respond to the ethical question the same way each time, or are your responses colored by your moral/political stances?
oh, and i am more psychopathic than the average bear. or i admit to it, which i think is something again.
