Philosophical Health Check

[Jim Preston]

For those of you who are interested in such things, the Philosophers Magazine has a quaint little quiz designed to measure the tension in your philosophical beliefs. That is, it asks some basic questions in order to gauge what level on internal contradiction you currently enjoy. It then gives you a score and points out a question or two where you seem to have some contradiction.

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/check.htm

It is with a small amount of pride that I scored a 7%, well below the average test taker. But then again, we lapsed-Catholic liberal intellectuals have always prided ourselves on our consistency, even if we've been consistently wrong.

[Anders Hallin]

I hate the "Was World War 2 a moral war?"-question.

[foogla]

It's also a test of your english skills, I found some questions/statements very ambiguous.

[antlers]

0 tensions here. I think I'll use this as a source of authority on my subsequent posts. I have a fully consistent belief system!

[extarbags]

The problem with that test is that it finds contradictions when there aren't any. For instance:

14. Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste

Agree.

25. Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists

Agree.

Contradiction!

How so? Based on the answer I gave to question fourteen, isn't it reasonable to assume that my answer to number twenty-five is a matter of taste?

Plus this:

You agreed that:
So long as they do not harm others, individuals should be free to pursue their own ends
But disagreed that:
The possession of drugs for personal use should be decriminalised

In order not to be in contradiction here, you must be able to make a convincing case that the personal use of drugs harms people other than the drug user. More than this - you must also show that prohibited drug use harms others more than other legal activities such as smoking, drinking and driving cars, unless you want to argue that these should also be made criminal offences. As alcohol, tobacco and car accidents are among the leading killers in western society, this case may be hard to make. You also have to make the case for each drug you think should not be decriminalised. The set of drugs which are currently illegal is not a natural one, so there is no reason to treat all currently illegal drugs the same.

And yet, the question doesn't distinguish between marijuana and PCP. I love that I'm supposed to provide context in an answer that I have to pick from a drop-down box.

And this:

You agreed that:
Severe brain-damage can rob a person of all consciousness and selfhood
And also that:
On bodily death, a person continues to exist in a non-physical form

These two beliefs are not strictly contradictory, but they do present an awkward mix of world-views. On the one hand, there is an acceptance that our consciousness and sense of self is in some way dependent on brain activity, and this is why brain damage can in a real sense damage 'the self'. Yet there is also the belief that the self is somehow independent of the body, that it can live on after the death of the brain. So it seems consciousness and selfhood both is and is not dependent on having a healthy brain. One could argue that the dependency of the self on brain only occurs before bodily death. The deeper problem is not that it is impossible to reconcile the two beliefs, but rather that they seem to presume wider, contradictory world-views: one where consciousness is caused by brains and one where it is caused by something non-physical.

Hey, way to be completely grounded in Western thought, you ass.

[Jim Preston]

Yeah, this is hardly meant to be a robust analysis of someone's philosophical beliefs. No professional philosopher is going to look at such loaded questions with such facile responses (agree! disagree!) and think this test is meaningful. I only found it interesting because I would pause before answering questions knowing that I had answered previously questions in a certain way. Thus showing that my striving for intellectual consistency would often cause me to pause if not reconsider my position in light of previous answers I'd given. That's all; I hope no one would take it too seriously.

[extarbags]

It's too late now, I'm tying my noose as we speak.

[MikeTwain]

It's hard to understand why somebody spent a lot of time on this seeing how useless it is. If philosophy could be reduced to a set of deterministic questions then philosophers would have a lot to worry about.

Reminds me a lot of the Deep Thought sequence from the Hitchhiker's guide.

"I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"

[MikeSofaer]

It's too late now, I'm tying my noose as we speak.
Tying a noose as you speak is one thing, I'm trying to imagine you tying a noose as you type, but it's not working.

[extarbags]

It's too late now, I'm tying my noose as we speak.
Tying a noose as you speak is one thing, I'm trying to imagine you tying a noose as you type, but it's not working.

Having been an angsty teenager at one point, I'm quite skilled at tying them with my toes.

[Nellie]

The art thing annoyed me as well, I couldnt see the contradiction.

I'll have to look at it again as I can at least accept that it is consistent if it objects to me disagreeing that "Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists" as well as agreeing to the statement.

[Bub, Andrew]

19. Proper sanitation and medicines are generally good for a society

C'mon. Who put "Disagree" here?

[Tim Partlett]

How so? Based on the answer I gave to question fourteen, isn't it reasonable to assume that my answer to number twenty-five is a matter of taste?

I agree here completely. I answered the same, because in my personal opinion Michaelangelo was one of the greatest artists ever. This is purely a matter of personal taste. I think that this was just badly worded so as not to be clear enough. Asking whether you thought that objectively Michaelangelo was one of the greatest artists ever would have been clearer. But, of course, that would have given the game away too easily.

And yet, the question doesn't distinguish between marijuana and PCP. I love that I'm supposed to provide context in an answer that I have to pick from a drop-down box.

However, here I think it was right to point out a tension (not contradiction) in your beliefs. If you think that people should be allowed to do as they like as long as they do not harm others, then by force of argument you should also agree that people can take PCP as long as they don't harm others. Taking PCP does not, by and of itself, cause harm to others, it just increases the risk that the person taking it may cause harm to others. I would have had "tension" here too, if they had asked the question "do you think people should be allowed to carry guns" or "drive while piss drunk." Neither of these acts causes harm, but both offer the risk of harm to others, just as allowing someone to take PCP or LSD.

The question is at what level of risk do we decide that someone's right to do as they please, as long as they don't harm others, end? Therein lies the tension.

Overall I think it was an interesting test that made me think about what I had said, without being an accurate indicator of my contradictory view points. I mean I got marked down for another of the same two choices as extarbags:

You agreed that:
Severe brain-damage can rob a person of all consciousness and selfhood
And also that:
On bodily death, a person continues to exist in a non-physical form.

There were two problems here: my answer to the bodily death question was really "I don't know" but I was forced to answer in black and white terms. The second problem is that it assumes that I think a person robbed of consciousness and selfhood in the bodily form cannot still retain these properties in another plane. The answer from me to this point again would be: I don't know.

For those who care, I scored "low" tension, of 20%. My only other tension was:

You agreed that:
The environment should not be damaged unnecessarily in the pursuit of human ends
But disagreed that:
People should not journey by car if they can walk, cycle or take a train instead

Here I think there was another problem, which they accepted in their description, and that is the issue of the meaning of "unnecessary". The problem is that people can pretty much always walk, cycle or take a train to their destination, but sometimes I think it is necessary to take a car. That's my definition of necessary, which obviously differs from theirs. My definition of necessary car journey would be any that would be difficult or inefficient to take by any other means. This is obviously a gray area which I cannot define in black and white terms.

[Pace]

Stop choking the earth mother, Tim. :P

[awdougherty]

I don't really think this is a very good test, the questions kind of suck at what they are trying to achieve is some cases.

My score was a 33%

[MikeTwain]

I understand the desire to deconstruct this thing but the more I see of these supposed contradictions the more stupid I think this thing is. It's so easy to set up BS straw man situations like this just to create pretend "tensions."

Let's try!

It's ok to put your cat to sleep because she's suffering from a painful and debilitating injury.
I agree!

It's ok to kill your mom because she's suffering from a painful and debilitating injury.
I disagree!


TENSION ALERT!
You said it was ok to kill your cat but not ok to kill your mom. But aren't your cat and your mom both living things? PWNED!!!!

[Ergo]

I scored 13%. I also thought the Art/Michaelangelo questions were idiotic.

[Sean Hargraves]

27%.

I believe genocide is "evil" (although that's not a word I would use. I'd say genocide isn't just). The ones committing genocide obviously think differently and I recognize that. Where's the contradiction in that?

[extarbags]

It's like it asks you if something is subjective, and you say yes, and then it asks you a related question and assumes that your answer is meant to be taken objectively.

You're right, there's no point in getting riled up. It's just that the quiz was clearly written by a retard.

[MikeTwain]

there's no point in getting riled up.

But getting riled up is all we do here man!

Way to take the wind outta my sails. Geez.

[milo]

I got a perfect score. I am comfortable enough in my belief system that I did not feel the need to take a stupid test on the Internet.

[Andrew Mayer]

I got a perfect score. I am comfortable enough in my belief system that I did not feel the need to take a stupid test on the Internet.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt...

[BooTx]

I got them all wrong.

[milo]

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt...
What are you in denial about?

[antlers]

I actually think the test was perfectly legitimate, and the score presents an accurate assessment of your intellectual integrity and your general worth as a person.

[Bren]

I post, therefore I am.