Consistency of Belief System [Archive] - Quarter To Three Forums

Unicorn McGriddle

06-01-2008, 10:35 PM

I'm pretty sure this test is bullshit. I got a 7%, and I know I'm a bigger hypocrite than that. They're humanists; I'm a humanist; I suspect some kind of bias. They might as well go all out and use the test I supply below in cutting-edge VisualJava QBasic.

1. [ ] I am stupid
2. [ ] I believe in God

10 If 1 = T and 2 = T then print "Figures!"
20 If 1 = F and 2 = T then print "You're dumber than you think."
30 If 1 = T and 2 = F then print "Why not, idiot?"
40 If 1 = F and 2 = F then print "Welcome, brother! Nanu nanu!"

They got me on Michaelangelo after I said the value of art is a matter of taste. I was torn on how to answer the question. I weighed several criteria in my mind with respect to "the greatest art of all time," but I wouldn't want to hurt Michaelangelo's feelings (since he is the most dangerous Ninja Turtle, after Rafael), so I decided that since he sculpted human bodies in a realistic style and his results look a lot like actual human bodies, he must have been pretty good. Objectively.

Really, for most of these questions, I wanted to write a brief paragraph explaining my views in more detail. Binary responses to these questions are weakass. I give them points for realizing that disregarding financial considerations in saving lives doesn't necessarily contradict a willingness to end lives or allow lives to end, though.

Anti-Bunny

06-01-2008, 10:39 PM

I don't really think those two answers are in "tension " but I believe my disagreement with the assessment has more to do with semantics than philosophical reasons.

There's no semantics involved there. Either it's reasonable to believe in something without proof, or it's not. If it's not reasonable to believe in something without proof, then there is a categorical difference between atheism and theism, as one is an active belief without proof, and one is a lack of belief without proof.

Funkula

06-01-2008, 10:44 PM

They got me on Michaelangelo after I said the value of art is a matter of taste. I was torn on how to answer the question. I weighed several criteria in my mind with respect to "the greatest art of all time," but I wouldn't want to hurt Michaelangelo's feelings (since he is the most dangerous Ninja Turtle, after Rafael), so I decided that since he sculpted human bodies in a realistic style and his results look a lot like actual human bodies, he must have been pretty good. Objectively.

It caught me in a contradiction on that one too, and I don't see why. If I say art is a matter of taste, then whatever I happen to think about Michaelangelo can't be inconsistent with that. Saying that Michaelangelo is great is not necessarily inconsistent with saying "People who say Michaelangelo isn't great aren't wrong."

Really, for most of these questions, I wanted to write a brief paragraph explaining my views in more detail. Binary responses to these questions are weakass. I give them points for realizing that disregarding financial considerations in saving lives doesn't necessarily contradict a willingness to end lives or allow lives to end, though.

Yeah, anything of this nature suffers when pulling choices from drop-down boxes. It's the QT3 poll problem all over again. At least we can post our caveats in the threads here.

Euri

06-01-2008, 10:47 PM

These tests usually fail because there is no way to question the intent of the question. I can say that art is a matter of opinion, and hold the opinion that some art is great. I have just given myself leave to do so without "tension."

Ezdaar

06-01-2008, 10:53 PM

7% here as well.

charmtrap

06-01-2008, 11:09 PM

I think the key is to agree or disagree with the statement as written. On the art one, I disagreed with "Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste". I don't really disagree that judgment of art is mostly taste; I disagree with the word "purely", since I do believe that there are some objective standards to judge the worth of art. For instance, I don't much care for Martin Scorcese's movies but I can appreciate why others like him. But at the point where I disagree with pure subjectivity in judgment of art, I'm free to agree or disagree with the statement about Michaelangelo since objective standards are always debatable where subjective ones are not. If that makes any sense....

Qmanol

06-01-2008, 11:15 PM

Yeah, 13%, but one of the two was Michelangelo.

Aeon221

06-01-2008, 11:15 PM

You aren't supposed to equivocate, you're supposed to choose which one means more to you. That's the whole bleeding point. It's a gun to your head hypothetical situation -- you pick your friend or your dog and you move along.

Buuuuut that isn't saying that I wouldn't have loved a couple of qualifiers of my own.

You agreed that:
It is always wrong to take another person's life
And also that:
The second world war was a just war

Yeah, I do. And I don't think of that as logically inconsistent either. When death camps are involved, it's hard not to think of it as a just war when the end result was shutting them down. Other than that, people shouldn't kill people. Or animals, for that matter.

Nezz

06-01-2008, 11:29 PM

This test is indeed not as carefully worded as statements in philosophical matters need to be. The author of the test thinks sentences 10 and 23 are in tension, ignoring that 'easily' can be understood in several different ways. Likewise, he sees a tension between 7 and 19, failing to notice that 'natural' is in one sentence used in a moral sense, but implied in a different sense in the other.

Phil_Stein

06-01-2008, 11:31 PM

There are several questions that seem vague to me:

"The environment should not be damaged unnecessarily in the pursuit of human ends"

The whole question hinges on how one defines "unnecessarily". I think very few people want to see the environment wantonly destroyed for no reason. But your interpretation and my interpretation of "unnecessarily" may be QUITE far apart. Without more clarity there, this question is a bit pointless.

---

"The second world war was a just war"

For who? For the Germans? No, not really. Did all of the Allies act in an entirely just way throughout? No, not really. Was the American entry into the war, on the whole a net positive (or, perhaps we should say "just")? Yeah, I think so, but there's a lot of details I'd quibble about. It's sort of like asking "Is 158 a big number?" Depends on the context...

---

"Having made a choice, it is always possible that one might have chosen otherwise"

What does this mean? Is this some kind of Philosophy 301 question? (I didn't take Philosophy 301). If you made a *choice*, then that implies that there were alternatives. Is the questions supposed to be asking if you can envision those alternatives after the fact? Oh, and if a tree falls in the woods, blah blah...

---

Some questions are just poorly written:

"It is not always right to judge individuals solely on their merits"

...would be much clearer if it was:

"It is always right to judge individuals solely on their merits" (They could just invert the answer key.)

Hanzii

06-01-2008, 11:33 PM

It caught me in a contradiction on that one too, and I don't see why. If I say art is a matter of taste, then whatever I happen to think about Michaelangelo can't be inconsistent with that. Saying that Michaelangelo is great is not necessarily.

Agreed, they got me on that one too.
20% - but their other explanations was fine (got me there, I am a hypocrite).

Kalle

06-01-2008, 11:48 PM

Rimbo

06-01-2008, 11:51 PM

13%

That said, there are some significant flaws in the test (as others have pointed out). Take this example:

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.

The problem here is that the second question doesn't refer to consciousness or the self specifically. A person can continue to exist, for example, as a memory in those who knew him or her. The supposed contradiction (and difficulties working around it) are based on the second question being phrased differently from how they did it.

Also, while I'm willing to entertain the possibility that I have some cognitive dissonance regarding the environment, their basis for this:

As walking, cycling and taking the train are all less environmentally damaging than driving a car for the same journey

...isn't accurate. For example, I don't consider it environmental damage if I'm driving a car that's converted to run on propane, and that's certainly less damaging than a diesel-powered train or an electric train that gets its power from a coal-burning or nuclear power plant. And this sort of thing is precisely why I disagreed with the absolutist statement "People should not journey by car if they can walk, cycle or take a train instead."

Anders Hallin

06-01-2008, 11:59 PM

The bad part of this quiz is that the way they ask the questions and their answers aren't really universally agreeable, the good part is that they do use complete transparency on where they disagree, so it works.
But of course, they only do that when you're "wrong".

Unicorn McGriddle

06-02-2008, 12:15 AM

"Having made a choice, it is always possible that one might have chosen otherwise"

What does this mean? Is this some kind of Philosophy 301 question?

I think it's some kind of predestination thing. You know, is it at all possible that events could have had different outcomes from the ones they actually blah blah blah.

Sarkus

06-02-2008, 12:20 AM

Not much to add. I got a 27% and felt like many that the explanations of where they thought I was inconsistent were unconvincing in some cases.

Specifically, I was taken to task on the environment issue, the art issue, the medication issue, and the drug use issue. I thought this latter one was particularly weak.

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.

Hanzii

06-02-2008, 12:21 AM

13%

...isn't accurate. For example, I don't consider it environmental damage if I'm driving a car that's converted to run on propane, and that's certainly less damaging than a diesel-powered train or an electric train that gets its power from a coal-burning or nuclear power plant. And this sort of thing is precisely why I disagreed with the absolutist statement "People should not journey by car if they can walk, cycle or take a train instead."

That's nitpicking because you're not driving a propane powered car. Neither is 99,999999% of car owners - it logical to assume that by car they mean the kind of cars comon on our roads now.
Your personal fissionpowered flying car of the future don't enter into this.

Sarkus

06-02-2008, 12:23 AM

That's nitpicking because you're not driving a propane powered car. Neither is 99,999999% of car owners - it logical to assume that by car they mean the kind of cars comon on our roads now.
Your personal fissionpowered flying car of the future don't enter into this.

Technically, he could be driving a propane powered car because they do exist - my family had several because my grandfather owned a company that made propane tanks and they expanded into that area in the 1970s.

That said, I'm not sure how driving a propane powered car solves the environmental problems. The impact of propane as a fuel is more than just what comes out of the exhaust of a motor that runs on it.

Hanzii

06-02-2008, 12:57 AM

Technically, he could be driving a propane powered car because they do exist - my family had several because my grandfather owned a company that made propane tanks and they expanded into that area in the 1970s.

That said, I'm not sure how driving a propane powered car solves the environmental problems. The impact of propane as a fuel is more than just what comes out of the exhaust of a motor that runs on it.

That's why I didn't write 100%.
Other than that we agree.

Chris Nahr

06-02-2008, 01:03 AM

They got me with relative morality (genocide vs lack of objective moral standards and environmentalism (no you don't have to take the train if you dont want to vs you should not hurt the environment unnecessarily). 13%

Same conflicts and end result here. The environment stuff clearly hinges on what's "unnecessary" or whether it's "possible" (in terms of time and convenience) to walk/bike/take the train. I don't want unncessary damage to the environment but neither to I want to go back 100 years to the time when farmers got up at 4 o'clock to walk to the nearest town with their backpack of goods... even though that was demonstrably possible.

The moral objectivity thing is just rhetoric that pretends a contradiction where none exists. "Are you really happy saying that the Rwandan genocide is evil from your perspective but not from theirs?" Yeah, I'm really happy with that, and why not? "Good" and "evil" are not useful categories for an observer of cultures, they are categories for actors within a culture. One can understand that and still retain one's own judgments.

Rimbo

06-02-2008, 01:56 AM

That's nitpicking because you're not driving a propane powered car. Neither is 99,999999% of car owners - it logical to assume that by car they mean the kind of cars comon on our roads now.
Your personal fissionpowered flying car of the future don't enter into this.

Of course it's a nit-pick, but if the test weren't being absolutist that driving a car is ALWAYS more damaging than a train no matter what, I wouldn't be able to; in this case, this little nit makes the entire premise invalid.

By the way: Propane (and other natural gas alternatives) conversion has been around since (at least) the late 60's/early 70's, and converting a gas-powered car to natural gas is well within the realm of reason -- between $3000 to $6000 bucks.

Rimbo

06-02-2008, 02:00 AM

The moral objectivity thing is just rhetoric that pretends a contradiction where none exists. "Are you really happy saying that the Rwandan genocide is evil from your perspective but not from theirs?" Yeah, I'm really happy with that, and why not? "Good" and "evil" are not useful categories for an observer of cultures, they are categories for actors within a culture. One can understand that and still retain one's own judgments.

Agreed. And it works the other way around, too: Just because I happen to believe that an objective truth exists does not mean that I feel I'm somehow above the influence of my upbringing and ignorance to know what that is. To me, this is the goal of scientific pursuit -- trying to find out what the objective truth is, while admitting that what the current state of our knowledge isn't there yet.

SergioBAM

06-02-2008, 02:08 AM

Based on an orginal idea by Marilyn Mason, education officer at the British Humanist Association

I did a little double take on this one.

13% for me.

Nezz

06-02-2008, 02:22 AM

"Good" and "evil" are not useful categories for an observer of cultures, they are categories for actors within a culture.
Is that statement universally true or only within your culture?

Chris Nahr

06-02-2008, 03:12 AM

Is your question universally pointless or only within your culture?

Lizard_King

06-02-2008, 03:56 AM

I got a 27%, and they legitimately caught me on the conflict between
You disagreed that:
It is quite reasonable to believe in the existence of a thing without even the possibility of evidence for its existence
But agreed that:
Atheism is a faith just like any other, because it is not possible to prove the non-existence of God
I didn't know quite what to say in the second case about my reservations with respect to atheism (despite being one myself), but definitely what I did end up saying was kind of dumb.
You agreed that:
There are no objective moral standards; moral judgements are merely an expression of the values of particular cultures
And also that:
Acts of genocide stand as a testament to man's ability to do great evil
And two other conflicts that were pretty much the same deal (relativity of truth vs Holocaust and matters of taste vs Michaelangelo).

I don't see why believing that truth, tastes, and morality in a broad sense are relative to the culture/society of the individual making the call makes me incapable of expressing what my tastes or morals dictate. Simply because I understand where they come from? Seems a bit unreasonable.

At least I should be rewarded for being consistently inconsistent about the same thing.

Nellie

06-02-2008, 03:58 AM

20% and knew that I'd be pulled up on agreeing that Michaelangelo was a great Artist but having given the answer to the other question I'd always "fail" on this one.

I'm also in conflict because I don't think medicines should be sold as such without testing but believe that alternative medicine is valuable. That someone can flog St Johns wort and people will try and use it as a medicine places those views in conflict rather than highlights an interesting loophole in British law surrounding what can be classed as a medicine without undergoing proper trials and testing.

madkevin

06-02-2008, 04:49 AM

7%. They got me on the "It is not always right to judge individuals solely on their merits" one, the bastards.

Anders Hallin

06-02-2008, 04:54 AM

Depends on what you count as a merit.

MikeJ

06-02-2008, 06:03 AM

When death camps are involved, it's hard not to think of it as a just war when the end result was shutting them down. Other than that, people shouldn't kill people.

First you said that taking a person's life was always wrong. Then you made an exception whenever the killing resulted in death camps being shut down. Clearly then, taking a person's life is not always wrong.

Hawkeye Fierce

06-02-2008, 06:26 AM

No tensions. Woot.

Miramon

06-02-2008, 06:43 AM

This is a weak quiz because they only allow two answers for the questions. You can favor a statement with exceptions, or favor it to some degree without necessarily committing to it completely, or generally disagree without thinking it's always and absolutely wrong, but the quiz forces you to choose one or the other.

However, the elementary dichotomies between the various commonplace assertions and the categorical philosophical statements can only be demonstrated through 100% agreement or disagreement. So I think it's pretty sophomoric.

If there was a "neither" answer, it would be easy to avoid "tension" because you could honestly answer "neither" to many of the absolutist philosophical statements. Alternatively, there might be a "usually" or "generally" answer that would be consistent with a "rarely" or "slightly" answer for the opposing items elsewhere on the list.

Anyway, 13%.

metta

06-02-2008, 07:04 AM

Your questions reveal far more about you than my answers will about me.

Machfive

06-02-2008, 07:12 AM

20%, and I really don't take issue with this quiz. All they're doing is showing where potential conflicts lie within certain areas of your personal philosophy; there's no saying you can't have exceptions to certain rules or whatnot to justify any aberrations in your belief system though.

I may view killing as abhorrent, even that rule has exceptions to it.

krise madsen

06-02-2008, 07:38 AM

I scored 7%, what do I win? But then I thought about it a while before answering. I did a second run and tried to objectively to give my gut reaction answer: 20%.

EDIT: I did a third run trying to be a cold-blooded libertarian: 20%, and then a fourth run trying to be a trying-to-be-good-and-moral-religious-person: 27%. Which probably says more about me than about the test.

This test proves what? That we're all hypocrites? That's called "being human".

Respectfully

krise madsen

Linoleum

06-02-2008, 07:44 AM

"Have you ever invented a new form of steel that revolutionized the railroad industry"

Why yes, yes I have....

Flowers

06-02-2008, 08:21 AM

It told me that the belief that the soul lives on after death was inconsistent with the idea that massive brain trauma robs you of consciousness and selfhood. This is not inconsistent and the accusation that it might be simply flies in the face of my long held belief that retarded people have no souls.*

*For example, in the case of spina bifida, the soul escapes through the hole in the baby's head as it flies towards the flourescent lighting in the operating room, mistaking it for the light of God.

StGabe

06-02-2008, 08:36 AM

I'm not sure what you guys were expecting. All the harumphing about the the test seems to be indicative of a little "tension". :-)

I think that the test does a decent job of at least pointing out views that are tricky. Whereas it won't ever be able to define all its words on a person-by-person basis, it does seem to highlight some interesting issues. Us intelligent folk (as I will generously assume of most QT3'ers) are very good at justifying beliefs, even potentially contradictory ones. It's good to evaluate those when we can. Not too surprisingly, most of us will harumph and declare that we have perfectly wonderful explanations for anything seemingly inconsistent in our world view, it can't hurt to at least think about some of those things.

For the record, I'm 100% consistent. J/k. I got a 7%. The inconsistency it pointed out for me seemed fair. I think the statement that I agreed to needed a few more qualifiers on it. But that's just my own rationalization and the test was pointing to a tension which is certainly interesting (in fact it was pointing to the sorts of things that were brought up in the past thread about scientific and religious evidence).

Hanzii

06-02-2008, 08:36 AM

Aaaand he's back.

Andrew Mayer

06-02-2008, 09:58 AM

13%

The Michelangelo one is interesting. I guess I confused "art" and engineering.

Nengjanggo

06-02-2008, 10:12 AM

Why worry about whether or not you are consistent? Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It only has 1+1 hit dice and treasure type C.

Rimbo

06-02-2008, 11:59 AM

Why worry about whether or not you are consistent? Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It only has 1+1 hit dice and treasure type C.

^--- awesome

Euri

06-02-2008, 12:23 PM

Why worry about whether or not you are consistent? Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It only has 1+1 hit dice and treasure type C.

Consistency is the foundation of science. Look around you, there is not a single thing there that was not brought to you courtesy of science, and scientific thinking. Our world (in the macro sense) is consistent, always. Our beliefs should reflect that. Inconsistencies simply point out the flaws in your thinking.

Kalle

06-02-2008, 12:23 PM

Consistency is the difference between ethics and "it feels right".

Phil_Stein

06-02-2008, 12:45 PM

I'm trying to figure out why this page now brings up an ad that appears to be for a Chinese dating service.

GoogleAds = Fail

(This time anyways...)

Alex Dolce

06-02-2008, 12:48 PM

I have a tension score of 40%, but I'm not tense about any of my contradictory answers. I think I just took the test wrong, because I spotted each contrasting question and knew very well which answer would increase my score. However, there's no tension there because, for most of them, it was a matter of semantics without any clear standard against which to judge my response. Many of the question pairs one part personal, one part other.

For example:
You agreed that:
The right to life is so fundamental that financial considerations are irrelevant in any effort to save lives
But disagreed that:
Governments should be allowed to increase taxes sharply to save lives in the developing world
The first question said nothing about government, so I answered it personally. If it were someone I cared for, then financial considerations are irrelevant to me if I can save his or her life. Jumping from that perspective to one of government taxing citizens to help other countries is a bit of a stretch.

I could have gone back an adjusted my answers once I saw what they were doing, but didn't feel the need to bother. I suspect the test is designed to get people to respond with as high scores as possible. It certainly seems that way. Take the truth vs. holocaust question pair. Here's what I got:

You agreed that:
There are no objective truths about matters of fact; 'truth' is always relative to particular cultures and individuals
And also that:
The holocaust is an historical reality, taking place more or less as the history books report

The test creates the tension by massaging the language. I see the word "truth" and I immediately flash to Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indy is teaching and says, "Archaeology is the study of fact, not truth. If it's truth you want, Dr. So-And-So's office is just down the hall."

Indy referenced joke aside, I do see truth as a philosophical concept, and fact as a scientific one. While there are people who deny that the holocaust happened, I don't really feel that their being entitled to be stupid, ignorant, and wrong as having anything to do with truth. They're ignoring fact to suit their worldview. The question seems to want to both agree that truth and fact are different concept while, at the same time, demanding that you agree that they aren't.

Alex Dolce

06-02-2008, 12:51 PM

Oh, and for the record, I'm an enormous hypocrite. I just don't think that any of these questions did a good job in pointing that out. Rather, I feel that they were carefully constructed to try and trick folks into getting high tension scores. I'm not sure for what purpose, but that's what it felt like.

ravenight

06-02-2008, 01:04 PM

You agreed that:
It is always wrong to take another person's life
And also that:
The second world war was a just war

Yeah, I do. And I don't think of that as logically inconsistent either. When death camps are involved, it's hard not to think of it as a just war when the end result was shutting them down. Other than that, people shouldn't kill people. Or animals, for that matter.

Well, so what you are saying is that you don't believe it is always wrong to take another person's life, since you agree that there are cases where killing is justified.

I got a 27%, and they legitimately caught me on the conflict between

You disagreed that:
It is quite reasonable to believe in the existence of a thing without even the possibility of evidence for its existence
But agreed that:
Atheism is a faith just like any other, because it is not possible to prove the non-existence of God

I didn't know quite what to say in the second case about my reservations with respect to atheism (despite being one myself), but definitely what I did end up saying was kind of dumb.

There's no semantics involved there. Either it's reasonable to believe in something without proof, or it's not. If it's not reasonable to believe in something without proof, then there is a categorical difference between atheism and theism, as one is an active belief without proof, and one is a lack of belief without proof.

No, there's a semantic distinction between it being reasonable to believe something without the possibility of proof and it being reasonable to believe something without the possibility of evidence. If there is no evidence one way or another, then belief is completely arbitrary, and it is fundamentally unreasonable to express a preference. There can be tons of evidence, though, without there being a possibility of a proof. When there's tons of evidence, it is reasonable to believe in the thing the evidence points to (even if your belief is effectively more absolute than the evidence can be). But a belief doesn't have to be unreasonable to be considered a "faith like any other". If the evidence puts the chance of God at a million to one against, you are still making a leap of faith to call that zero.

I don't see why believing that truth, tastes, and morality in a broad sense are relative to the culture/society of the individual making the call makes me incapable of expressing what my tastes or morals dictate. Simply because I understand where they come from? Seems a bit unreasonable.

This is the biggest flaw that I see. They are basically saying in several places that it is inconsistent to say, "I believe X" and "My beliefs are a product of who I am". Just because I believe that morality is relative doesn't mean that I hold no moral positions. For example:

You agreed that:
There are no objective moral standards; moral judgements are merely an expression of the values of particular cultures
And also that:
Acts of genocide stand as a testament to man's ability to do great evil

...To reconcile the tension, you could say that all you mean is that to say 'genocide is evil' is to express the values of your particular culture. It does not mean that genocide is evil for all cultures and for all times. However, are you really happy to say, for example, that the massacre of the Tutsi people in 1994 by the Hutu dominated Rwandan Army was evil from the point of view of your culture but not evil from the point of view of the Rwandan Army, and what is more, that there is no sense in which one moral judgement is superior to the other?

The bolded part is where they lose me. I am perfectly willing to say that the genocide of the Tutsi people was not evil from the point of view of the Rwandan Army (if shown evidence to suggest that is true - just because they did it doesn't mean they thought it was ok). But that doesn't mean I'm willing to say there's no sense in which one moral judgment is superior to another. Just because I can explain the source of morals (they are "merely and expression of the values of particular cultures") and don't believe there is an absolute standard, doesn't mean I believe there is no basis for comparing them. Another general problem of the test: it wants everything to be an absolute - either something is definitely true or definitely false, but reality doesn't work that way. We aren't sure about anything, all we have is good guesses based on increasingly good reasoning.

Dirt

06-02-2008, 01:50 PM

WWII was a just war? From which side are we supposed to look at this?

Questions 22 and 15: What is the seat of the self?
42025 of the 132778 people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

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.

This is a pretty Western point of view.

Kalle

06-02-2008, 01:50 PM

The first question said nothing about government, so I answered it personally. If it were someone I cared for, then financial considerations are irrelevant to me if I can save his or her life. Jumping from that perspective to one of government taxing citizens to help other countries is a bit of a stretch.

The first question didn't say anything about people you cared for. It's a pretty radical misinterpretation of the statement, hence the resulting conflict.

Kalle

06-02-2008, 01:51 PM

WWII was a just war? From which side are we supposed to look at this?

The poor victims of the atomic bomb.

ravenight

06-02-2008, 02:01 PM

WWII was a just war? From which side are we supposed to look at this?

The question isn't ambiguous.

This is a pretty Western point of view.

Explain. In the East there is no contradiction between believing that damage to the brain hurts the self and also believing that the self continues after death (a process which most certainly damages the brain)? Or is the argument just that brain damage is temporary, and everything is reloaded from a previous save when you get reincarnated?

StGabe

06-02-2008, 02:05 PM

The question isn't ambiguous.

So you agreed that the cause of exterminating inferior races was just? Or did you disagree that defending Europe was just?

(or do you think that the term "just" is fishy and probably doesn't apply in the way they are using it -- and in that case, which do you answer?)

ravenight

06-02-2008, 02:13 PM

I don't think it is at all confusing to ask whether WWII was a just war and expect people to assume you are not asking whether the Axis was justified in their actions.

Alex Dolce

06-02-2008, 02:20 PM

The first question didn't say anything about people you cared for. It's a pretty radical misinterpretation of the statement, hence the resulting conflict.
That seems a silly thing to say, considering that the question also didn't say anything about government. To assume it did would be just a "radical" a misinterpretation of the statement, wouldn't it?

The absence of establishing the parameters results in the conflict, not the imposition of one's own experience when given none.

antlers

06-02-2008, 02:26 PM

WWII was a just war? From which side are we supposed to look at this?

This is a pretty Western point of view.

Given that the test is written in English, it's safe to assume that the question is asked from the perspective of the English-speaking countries, which were on the same side in WWII.

I'm perfectly consistent, by the way. If you're 100% materialist and believe there are absolute standards of ethics, truth, and beauty, the test is a cinch.

ravenight

06-02-2008, 02:29 PM

That seems a silly thing to say, considering that the question also didn't say anything about government. To assume it did would be just a "radical" a misinterpretation of the statement, wouldn't it?

The absence of establishing the parameters results in the conflict, not the imposition of one's own experience when given none.

The right to life is so fundamental that financial considerations are irrelevant in any effort to save lives

The parameters of that statement are pretty well established by the phrase "any effort to save lives". To interpret the statement above as asking whether you agree if there are lives you would spare no expense to save is a radical misinterpretation. It is very clearly asking if there is ever a situation in which you believe the financial cost of saving a life is too high.

Alex Dolce

06-02-2008, 02:39 PM

My point, if I have one, is that the conflict generates itself when you ask one question in a general, nebulous sense with no indication of perspective, then contrast it with another question phrased specifically with a narrow focus.

Take the WWII question: "Was WWII a just war?" - There's not indication of perspective there, so you have to assume personally. Do you believe WWII was a just war? I can't remember what that question was contrasted with, but that question alone demands you think about it personally. Of course, you could choose to not. Answer it from either the view of the Allies or the Axis powers and you'd get the same answer, because both felt it justified. However, maybe you're supposed to answer it in a general international-relations philosophy way, and maybe you'd side on Isolationism.

What does the question mean by "just" anyway? Was the war justifiable or justfied at the time? What sort of justification, specifically? Moral? Financial? International Power? Genocide?

Anyway, you can't take a very vague, very general question and contrast it with a very focused, specific question without expecting conflict, which is exactly what I suspect the test is designed to do. It's not so much to point out your own "tensions" as it is to manufacture them as best it can.

Of course, the argument is there that you have to ask a general question followed by a specific question to have any contrast against which to judge, which is entirely valid - IF you have more nuance to the response than just Agree or Disagree.

Do I think the holocaust factually happened? Of course I do. Do I think it was more or less like the history books present it? Which history books? If public high school textbooks, then no, not really. If university level focused examinations of the topic? Yes, of course. So how do I answer the question? Which question do I answer? The one about the holocaust having happened, or the one about how "history books" present it? If I had some nuance available in my response, I could answer it fairly comfortably, but I don't - so I have to choose Agree, lest I feel like a holocaust denial moron.

Alex Dolce

06-02-2008, 02:42 PM

The parameters of that statement are pretty well established by the phrase "any effort to save lives". To interpret the statement above as asking whether you agree if there are lives you would spare no expense to save is a radical misinterpretation. It is very clearly asking if there is ever a situation in which you believe the financial cost of saving a life is too high.
If that's so, then the contrasting question could easily be something like, "Should the entire financial resources of all the world's governments be combined to save Little Susie Who Fell Down The Well?"
I think assuming that any and every possible condition is a much more radical misinterpretation than the quite natural reaction of relating to the question personally. After all, there are other questions on the test that specifically require that you answer from a personal viewpoint while never stating it. The WWII question again comes to mind. "Was WWII a just war?" - from who's perspective are you to answer that, if not your own?

Rimbo

06-02-2008, 02:43 PM

Consistency is the foundation of science. Look around you, there is not a single thing there that was not brought to you courtesy of science, and scientific thinking. Our world (in the macro sense) is consistent, always. Our beliefs should reflect that. Inconsistencies simply point out the flaws in your thinking.

I think that's how the quote has been taken to mean nowadays, Euri: That it's foolish to maintain consistency in beliefs once new evidence arises that contradicts it. I don't think that's quite what Emerson originally meant, of course, but 11th grade Literature class was a long time ago.

Rather, I feel that they were carefully constructed to try and trick folks into getting high tension scores.

I think you've got a good point there. I found myself finding that "disagree" was the default answer I gave for most of the questions, just because the wording went too far; for example, the statement "There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God," I had to disagree with; while I do believe that God exists, those three adjectives, as worded, don't apply universally and absolutely.

StGabe

06-02-2008, 02:47 PM

Given that the test is written in English, it's safe to assume that the question is asked from the perspective of the English-speaking countries, which were on the same side in WWII.

Or, given that German/Japan were the original aggressors, it would be reasonable to assume that the question is about them. It's definitely vague -- I noticed that when I took the test -- although it's not hard to figure out what they meant to say.

It's also vague in the sense that if you disagree you could mean one of two things: you could mean that you think the war was unjust or you could mean that you think the term "just" doesn't really apply.

It's one of the more poorly worded statements.

Anti-Bunny

06-02-2008, 02:47 PM

Yes, it does. There are a number of questions to which I would choose "Not enough information".

They're perfectly descriptive. This isn't a test of -situational- ethics, it's a look at your overall philosophy. If you cannot decide from the information given, or being indicated by the test as contradicting yourself, then it is entirely possible that you do not have a decided personal philosophy on the subject.

Alex Dolce

06-02-2008, 02:47 PM

I think you've got a good point there. I found myself finding that "disagree" was the default answer I gave for most of the questions, just because the wording went too far; for example, the statement "There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God," I had to disagree with; while I do believe that God exists, those three adjectives, as worded, don't apply universally and absolutely.
Yes, excellent point. Perhaps you believe in a supreme being of some sort, but you don't find him or her to be particularly loving or good - then how do you answer? Maybe you're a polytheist, so naturally you disagree by default.

It's just all a bit silly. Sometimes, you need to answer from personal experience, sometimes you don't. Mostly, though, the general questions are phrased in such a way as to get as many people as possible to agree with them, then contrast them with a focused, specific question that as many people as possible will disagree with (or vice versa), and POOF - you have tension!

Kalle

06-02-2008, 02:56 PM

If that's so, then the contrasting question could easily be something like, "Should the entire financial resources of all the world's governments be combined to save Little Susie Who Fell Down The Well?"

Defensive much? For what it's worth, such an interpretation of the statement is still better than your original one since it actually follows from what was written. Which doesn't make it a reasonable interpretation, mind you.

Rimbo

06-02-2008, 02:58 PM

I don't think it is at all confusing to ask whether WWII was a just war and expect people to assume you are not asking whether the Axis was justified in their actions.

If this is what they meant, why did they not state, "The Allies' cause in WW2 was just," "The Allies' actions in WW2 were just," "The liberation of the Holocaust survivors justified the war against Germany" or "The liberation of China and Korea from Japanese rape camps justified killing their children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?"

I went into the test assuming that they meant what they said and that they said what they meant. And by "just war," I assume they mean that the whole war -- from the rise of Hitler on to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- was just. And when you include the whole, you get a whole mess of bad mixed in with the good. It's difficult for me to find any relevance at all between liberating Auschwitz and the internment of Japanese-Americans, and much more difficult to say that the former justifies the latter.

Rimbo

06-02-2008, 03:14 PM

Yes, excellent point. Perhaps you believe in a supreme being of some sort, but you don't find him or her to be particularly loving or good - then how do you answer? Maybe you're a polytheist, so naturally you disagree by default.

Or even if you just recognize that many different people have many different interpretations of similar religious experiences, both in different cultures and in different times; even the Bible itself (and at this point you could rightly ask, "Which Bible?") represents multiple points of view as you go through it, from God being one of many early on, to being the only "real" one, to being the only one of any kind; from being the god of an individual, to the god of a particular culture, to being a god "for everyone." At one point, God wanted us to be vegetarian; then, God was only concerned with eating "ceremonially clean" meat; then, God doesn't give a crap what you eat. Maybe God is all-powerful and merely shows lots of restraint because He wants us to exercise free will; maybe God created us in such a way that He genuinely doesn't have a choice but to let us make our own decisions, implying that there are in fact limits to His power.

These "issues" don't really matter so much; they're fun philosophical mental masturbation and/or make a good sales pitch. But it's kind of like your parents; only the silliest among us really dwell on the fact our parents LIED (*gasp*!) to us about Santa Claus coming down the chimney when we were impressionable and young, and I kinda view the folks who insist that God MUST be "all-whatever" (whether they be supporters or detractors) that same way.

ravenight

06-02-2008, 07:59 PM

I went into the test assuming that they meant what they said and that they said what they meant. And by "just war," I assume they mean that the whole war -- from the rise of Hitler on to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- was just.

The question of whether or not WWII was a just war is a very standard one. Like the words "WWII" and "just war", which require you to interpret based on prior knowledge, the issue of whether or not war can be justified because defeating Hitler was that important is equally common knowledge.

If that's so, then the contrasting question could easily be something like, "Should the entire financial resources of all the world's governments be combined to save Little Susie Who Fell Down The Well?"

Yes, and there would be tension between you agreeing that financial considerations are irrelevant when it comes to saving lives, but refusing to spend all the world's money on one person. They are deliberately citing and opinion that many people would agree with when asked, and then showing that in reality those people don't fully agree. Of course, where the logic of the test breaks down is that they deliberately state opinions that someone might agree/disagree 90% with, then ask you to choose to agree or disagree 100% and tell you you are contradicting yourself because of one of the cases in the 10%.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that this particular question was not a personal one - to answer "agree" because you would spare no expense to save a loved one is to answer the wrong question.

I find it amusing that they make a point of saying there are no wrong answers, but construct the test specifically to show that certain answers are wrong (i.e. that you don't really believe them).

It did generate some interesting discussion though, so there's that.

bigdruid

06-02-2008, 09:32 PM

I scored 0%, which unlocked the secret 31st question:

31. People who scored more than 0% on this test are fuzzy-thinking muddleheads.

[Agree]/Disagree

lesslucid

06-02-2008, 09:45 PM

I think that's how the quote has been taken to mean nowadays, Euri: That it's foolish to maintain consistency in beliefs once new evidence arises that contradicts it. I don't think that's quite what Emerson originally meant, of course, but 11th grade Literature class was a long time ago.

My reading of Emerson's quotation - and the essay it's found in - is that trying to be consistent with what you have said in the past is foolish. If you were wrong yesterday, it's better to be right today than to try to pretend to have been right yesterday by expressing views which you know today to be wrong. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds". Those two initial words change the whole meaning of the thing.

About the test, I'm with the "tense" people who don't like it. I'm pretty confident that my beliefs are consistent with each other, and given a big pad of paper to write them down on and a fair judge to read what I've written, I think they'd agree. But a test like this - which makes you say "agree" or "disagree" to a bunch of loaded statements - feels like it's just been designed to catch out people who don't hold the same views as the author. For example, the first statement is something like "Ethics are not absolute; instead, they are culturally relative". Now, I don't believe ethics are absolute, nor do I believe they are culturally relative. But if I say "disagree", does it assume that I believe ethics are absolute?

Euri

06-02-2008, 10:15 PM

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds".

Now there is something I can agree with. Always try to be correct and you won't have to worry about being consistent, because consistency will follow.

Rimbo

06-02-2008, 11:36 PM

The question of whether or not WWII was a just war is a very standard one. Like the words "WWII" and "just war", which require you to interpret based on prior knowledge, the issue of whether or not war can be justified because defeating Hitler was that important is equally common knowledge.

Given that, as you said, this is really a quiz designed to trap people, one should recognize that anything that isn't explicitly stated as such has Admiral Ackbar all over it. Knowing that they're trying to set a trap (or even without knowing that), it's best to treat the question as it's written and not for what you think the question "really" means.

Aeon221

06-03-2008, 01:19 AM

First you said that taking a person's life was always wrong. Then you made an exception whenever the killing resulted in death camps being shut down. Clearly then, taking a person's life is not always wrong.

"Always wrong" is not the same as "should never be done". It means that, whether or not you were able to justify it, it is always bad for someone to be killed. This AND that, rather than this OR that.

For instance, in a hypothetical situation where I was given a choice between killing one person or allowing him to kill two other people, I would kill that person and also feel incredibly bad about it. Like, "oh my God I just had to go against everything I believe in" bad.

WW2 was, in my eyes, a similar situation. The Allies were given a choice between killing or, by inaction, allowing the deaths of countless others. So, killing German and Japanese soldiers would be wrong, and allowing them to do seriously fucked up things to other people would also be wrong.

So I consider the war just (as in, the correct decision given the situation), but I don't consider the deaths of any of the individuals involved a good thing, or even a neutral thing. Every death is a tragedy. Heck, even Hitler's, because maybe even he could have been saved.