Consistency and Moral Taboos

An interesting quiz meant to test the consistency of one's views on matters of personal morality. My results are as follows:

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.00.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: -1.

This page compares my results to those of the average test taker. As shocking as my numbers will seem to you once you've completed the test and have more context, it's vital that I point out an important distinction I made throughout the course of the exercise, namely that between deeds I find personally disgusting on a purely psychological level, and those I find immoral. I don't believe that it's meaningful to speak of the "immorality" of actions which harm no third parties, and it is perfectly possible to find certain activities viscerally repulsive even as one understands that there's nothing morally wrong with them: to use a culinary analogy, I'd never eat frogs or rotting shark meat*, but that doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with those who do.

*"Hakarl", an Icelandic delicacy.

Comments

[Jim]

I tested the same. The moral aspects (the rational part of the test)were arguable, but even the ick-quotient wasn't very high on any of the scenarios. Maybe these things just look small when put on the same scale as real life atrocities and immoralities.

[jeet]

Mmm, hakarl.

[radek]

You'd never eat frog legs?
They do essentially taste and feel like chicken wings - though I only tried them once. And rotten shark meat doesn't sound that far removed from sashimi. Ok, maybe the rotten part does, but still, I'd try it.

Now dogs and monkey brains (like in Indiana Jones) I don't think I could do. Cats, well, I don't really have any immediate emotional objections, though it has no appeal, not even one motivated by curiosity (unlike rottin' shark meat).

[radek]

I just took the quiz and got the same result - though you could see what was going on after a few questions. The main thing is that you got to stick to the 'moral' sense of the word 'wrong' and not the oft used colloquial one as in 'that's just wrong!' which usually is an expression of disgust (the yuk factor).

I considered 'a little wrong' on eating the family pet, but the example was about a cat so it's okay. Eat those suckers! Of course, if one is morally okay with eating pig then there's no reason why one would be morally against eating dog.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of folks on here got similar results. Self-selection and all that. I'll have to forward this to my ex-roomate who believes that women who dye their hair are advertising their sexual degeneracy (not a Christian, a Platonist!).

[Frank McGahon]

I also got the same score although I thought they could have used a more precise term than "bothered to watch" to connote moral condemnation. I'm not "bothered" by the thought of some guy "choking the chicken" or poking the chicken, but that doesn't mean I'd be delighted to "watch" either activity.

[radek]

It occured to me they should another question at the end:

A man takes a morality quiz on the internet, prompted to do so by an acquitance. As it turns out his score indicates moral confusion. Ashamed the man reports a score different than the real one back to his friend.

a) Is anybody harmed by this misreporting of the quiz?
Please select... Yes No I don't know

b) Would it bother you to know that a person lied about their score on a morality quiz?
Please select... Yes No I don't know

[Julian Elson]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.10. (I said that pushing the boy off of the swing was morally wrong)
Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.
Your Universalising Factor is: 1.00.

[Abiola Lapite]

"You'd never eat frog legs?"

No. I have a strong aversion to amphibians in general.

"my ex-roomate who believes that women who dye their hair are advertising their sexual degeneracy (not a Christian, a Platonist!)"

Sounds more like a classicist to me (the hair-dyeing thing was something prostitutes used to do in those days).

"I thought they could have used a more precise term than "bothered to watch" to connote moral condemnation."

Yes, so did I. Just because one would prefer not to watch something doesn't mean one finds it morally contemptible; I wouldn't like to watch sausages being made either.

"I said that pushing the boy off of the swing was morally wrong"

That can't be why you scored as you did, as I gave the same answer.

[Julian Elson]

Hmmm... come to think of it, I think I said that the guy who promised to vis his mom's grave every year and then doesn't after her death is "a little wrong."

[radek]

Yeah, somewhat of a classicist, though he mostly qouted Socrates at me. Anyway he actually ended lower than average in the moralizing category and more consistent. Which probably says more about the average out there, unfortunetly.

And making sausages has gotten a bad rap, I've seen it done, hell, helped make them, and it ain't so bad. Now making sausages in a factory where all kinds of stray critters might make their way into the product is another story.

[Stentor]

I found the question about the two countries to be a bit ambiguous. If it's just a *custom* that people in the one country don't clean their bathrooms with a flag, that's all fine and dandy with me. But if one country has a law against flag-bathroom-cleaning, I'd say that country is in the wrong.

(I got moralizing .03 (for the same reason as Julian Elson -- after saying the promise-breaker didn't harm anyone, I reconsidered and thought there might be some diffuse harm not ruled out by the scenario, so I said it was a little wrong), interference 0, and universalizing 0)

[Jim]

Radek,

You are obviously too extravagant in your choice of material to put into sausage. The real stuff is made with everything the dogs back away from.