Test your morals

person

I love personality tests. This is a site where social scientists post questionnaires for studies they are doing into moral values and character. There are a couple dozen current studies and many more old, closed studies where you can still take the tests to see where you shake out and compare to others. For those who are interested in such things. I especially recommend taking the MFQ (moral foundations questionnaire) A,B and C.

http://www.yourmorals.org/explore.php

yagr

Interesting. I am dealing with something quite similar right now in my own life (psychiatric testing as part of disability claim) and find that I simply cannot answer the questions. I registered with the intention of taking the test but a quick scan of the questions left me confused. For example:

" When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?"

1. Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority.

I mean, I can answer for myself - but not someone else. This seems so obvious to me but despite my attempts to communicate my inability to answer for someone else, I seem to keep missing the 'missing link' that could get others to understand where I am coming from. shrug

person

@yagr said:
Interesting. I am dealing with something quite similar right now in my own life (psychiatric testing as part of disability claim) and find that I simply cannot answer the questions. I registered with the intention of taking the test but a quick scan of the questions left me confused. For example:

" When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?"

1. Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority.

I mean, I can answer for myself - but not someone else. This seems so obvious to me but despite my attempts to communicate my inability to answer for someone else, I seem to keep missing the 'missing link' that could get others to understand where I am coming from. shrug

Funny, I ran into similar things too. On one of them that tested moral relevancy towards certain behaviors I only thought something had moral relevance if the action had an effect on others, for example lying or stealing. And had zero moral relevance if it only effected oneself, for example drug use or laziness. So I ended up scoring higher than others on relationship morality but way lower on everything else to the point of making me wonder if I'm totally amoral. I guess most people don't make that distinction between what they do and what other people do in terms of morality?

And then there are questions like do you consider taking care of the planet as being more important that taking care of people. I'm like taking care of the planet IS taking care of people.

person

@yagr
You might find this of interest

Tribal and territorial
Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality.[11] She characterizes the latter as predominantly negative (not bad negative, but more like empty space negative) and proscriptive: it defines a person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant's 'categorical imperative' and Geisler's graded absolutism. Green relates the development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality#Tribal_and_territorial

karasti

It is odd to make a comparison to others but I suppose how you view what others do is easier to test on or perhaps to be honest on than trying to judge yourself. We often excuse ourselves and give reasons for a lot of things but do not offer the same to others.

In any case, I am not really sure what to make of the results. I got a 4.7 in harm, a 3.8 in fairness, .8 in loyalty, .8 in authority and .3 in purity, heh.

I have no problem with loyalty itself. But blind loyalty to country, family, etc that I have a problem with.

Edited to add that I find morals really personal, so it was hard to answer based on other people. There are a lot of values I hold for myself but I do not expect others to share them or abide by them.

person

@karasti said:
It is odd to make a comparison to others but I suppose how you view what others do is easier to test on or perhaps to be honest on than trying to judge yourself. We often excuse ourselves and give reasons for a lot of things but do not offer the same to others.

In any case, I am not really sure what to make of the results. I got a 4.7 in harm, a 3.8 in fairness, .8 in loyalty, .8 in authority and .3 in purity, heh.

I have no problem with loyalty itself. But blind loyalty to country, family, etc that I have a problem with.

Edited to add that I find morals really personal, so it was hard to answer based on other people. There are a lot of values I hold for myself but I do not expect others to share them or abide by them.

Loyalty can also be thought of in terms of where you draw the line in in group-out group. So conservatives draw that line more narrowly than liberals. This is the work of Jonathan Haidt and his Moral Landscape, so if you want to understand more I recommend checking him out.

Shoshin

Test your morals

I have no morals

lobster

Tee hee ... keep up the 'good' work @Shoshin
(so naughty!)

FoibleFull

If you want to understand your morals, look at what you have and have not done up to this point in your life.
You don't need someone else telling you who you are.

Jeroen

@Shoshin said:
I have no morals

What does a person with no morals do?

person

@FoibleFull said:
If you want to understand your morals, look at what you have and have not done up to this point in your life.
You don't need someone else telling you who you are.

I think that is probably right, but I wouldn't recommend dismissing it so easily. What I have gotten most out of Jonathan Haidt's work is more about understanding other people's morals than my own. Maybe understanding others has had some impact on putting mine into context.

Shoshin

@Kerome said:

@Shoshin said:
I have no morals

What does a person with no morals do?

Lie...especially about having morals....

lobster

Static and rigid behavour patterns based on absolutes, leads to potential monstrosities but then so does undisciplined and unconstrained behaviour.

I wonder how we differentiate between the related concepts of morality, ethics, integrity, sila and virtue?

Is there a Middle Way?

person

@lobster said:
Static and rigid behavour patterns based on absolutes, leads to potential monstrosities but then so does undisciplined and unconstrained behaviour.

I wonder how we differentiate between the related concepts of morality, ethics, integrity, sila and virtue?

Is there a Middle Way?

I love it, that is what I try to do. Live in ambiguity and uncertainty trying to figure out what works best depending on the situation rather than adhering to an ideology or some spineless compromise position.

There are some others who do the same

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_centrism

This my view of our current politics, the angry glares are important.

yagr

You might be interested in the book, The Six Questions of Socrates by Christopher Philips. I found it a fun, fascinating read.