Poll: Think you think straight? Think again...

[rutger5000]

The question didn't say "In my opinion, Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists"...

A cheap shot perhaps, but the questions are designed to test the strength of your convictions.

Its an interesting quiz.

I recieved 13% tension. The first one i have a problem with though and don't believe i was wrong.

"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"

Like you said, it was a cheap shot. I was meaning:

"In my opinion and that of my culture: Acts of genocide stand as a testament to man's ability to do great evil".

After all i'm sure the people doing the killing didn't see it as an evil thing.

No I feel the test was right about that one. If no objective moral standards exist then no testament of great evil can exist. Because after a certain period of time the culture will have changed, and that great evil will not be considered as a great evil anymore. Ergo it wasn't a testament of evil, only an act that has been considered as evil for a while.

 

[PoliceBox63]

I misread the WW2 one as "The second world war was just a war" so I agreed.
Otherwise it would've been 0%

 

[manaman]

Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up and get your free philosophical health check...


Ever wondered if your ideas about the world are actually consistent with each other?

Ever feel like you might be a raging hypocritical moron? Ever thought someone else was?


Truth is, most of us spend our lives attached to little ideas we have about the way life should be but it turns out few of us actually agree with the principles we think we do. A lot of the time, our ideas come into conflict with each other which is why working out the morality of things can be tricky...

For example;

Do you believe that people should be free to make their own decisions and live out their lives doing what they want so long as they don't hurt anyone else?

Do you believe a person should be arrested if they sat next to you on a park bench and injected themselves with heroin in front of you and your kids?

Well, you can't actually have one without the other.

I found this great website a little while back and there is a bunch of tests on it that evaluate your ideas, ethics and morals, just to let you know that you probably spend most nights arguing with yourself and why...

Take a look! http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/check.php

(no I'm not advertising btw, just sharing something cool)


Aaaand for the discussion, Share your findings with us and lets find out who can walk the walk, talk the talk and erm... Think.... the think.... There is bound to be some surprises in store for everyone. Certainly made me think twice.

I find your example to be poor.

Just because you can't quantify how an action hurts one other person doesn't mean the collective actions of all the individuals that peruse that action does not negatively impact the rest of society.

Rampant drug use leads to all manner of other crime both directly and indirectly. Sure some might not fall into the cycle, but enough do. I have lived in some bad neighbourhoods and seen the effects for myself.

It was deliberately ambiguous. And I personally agree with you regarding the specifics of the question but the real point of the question was this...

Should people live freely so long as they do not harm others?

Should something be made illegal if it can harm oneself?

If we believe the first statement we should also accept the potential consequences of the second. There is at least some conflict in one's attitudes toward personal freedom if both statements are agreed with in this case.

Phrased that way I have no conflict. I agree that people should be free to live their lives provided they do not cause undue physical, mental, or financial harm. I specifically used mental in place of emotional, as hurting someone's feelings is temporary and someone should not need protection from harsh words, but subjecting someone constantly to torment and abuse is harm someone should be protected from.

I don't agree that people should need protection from themselves. The only problem with that is as a society we cannot strictly think of people as individuals

They ARE individuals though, so we should see them that way.

We punish them as individuals too. The judge doesn't go "well we need to figure out what would happen if 2 million other people did the same thing". They arrest them as individuals, they try them as individuals and they punish them as individuals.

Yes. Because that applies exactly to what I was saying. Uh, huh. For reals yo, ain't no sarcasm here playa!

Look the crack head stealing your neighbours tools isn't bothering you, and even if nobody has ever stolen from you to feed their drug habit doesn't mean it's not hurting anyone. Just because a drunk driver never mower down your family doesn't make it alright to get behind the wheel. Those are obvious. Less obvious is the junkie that doesn't work and ties up thousands upon thousands of dollars in social aid and care doesn't mean it's not hurting anyone either, even if the total cost is less then pennies per person.

In a society you have to balance personal freedoms with the harm those actions cause overall to society. Not every druggie steals, not everyone that is at the legal limit has such a loss of motor control that they cannot remain in control of a vehicle. The majority do and when you are making laws for a society you have to draw a line somewhere. Your argument of treating everyone as individuals under law makes no sense either.

Unless of course you actually think lawmakers have each individual in the country, state, province, county, town, municipality, city or whatever they are applying the law to in mind overtime they draft up a law. Of course not. They are thinking about the community or society they are drafting the law for (corruption and personal politics aside).

That's it? Those are your examples. Some druggies rob places, drunk driving is dangerous and some druggies don't work? Well robbing places and driving drunk is all ready illegal, we don't need to ban alcohol just because someone might abuse it. Nor is it exactly fair to punish everyone because some people can't handle something.

I am just going to assume now that you are intentionally coming up in left field when my point was driven off far to the right. It really is like you are early skimming the post and replying on whatever happens to stick in your head.

Regardless, this was about a persons core beliefs and how agreeing with the two statements was supposedly contradictory. Right or wrong I believe I quite handedly explained how I can agree with both statements and it not be a conflict in my basic beliefs.

It's still a conflict. Either people are free to harm themselves or they are not. Carving out exceptions means you don't agree with it.

But fine a guy shooting heroin harms no one. All your examples of harm to society occur when he shoots heroin and then does something else.

And how exactly does treating people as individuals (which we all ready do) make no sense?

Laws apply to societies or communities. Do they not? Laws are made to protect communities as well as laws to protect individuals.

There is no conflict in my beliefs on this subject. The only conflict is the one you are trying so desperarly to create.

 

[rutger5000]

7%... stupid Michaelangelo question.

You agreed that:
Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste
And also that:
Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists

The tension here is the result of the fact that you probably don't believe the status of Michaelangelo is seriously in doubt. One can disagree about who is the best artist of all time, but surely Michaelangelo is on the short list. Yet if this is true, how can judgements about works of art be purely matters of taste? If someone unskilled were to claim that they were as good an artist as Michaelangelo, you would probably think that they were wrong, and not just because your tastes differ. You would probably think Michaelangelo's superiority to be not just a matter of personal opinion. The tension here is between a belief that works of art can be judged, in certain respects, by some reasonably objective standards and the belief that, nonetheless, the final arbiter of taste is something subjective. This is not a contradiction, but a tension nonetheless.

I'm calling bullshit on that. I assert that "Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste" yes, but then I make a personal judgement based on my own taste that Michaelangelo is one of the finest artists in history... No contradiction, no tension.

Yeah that was a stupid question. I Disagreed on the Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste, question. But tended to also disagree on the Michaelangelo is one of history's finest artists question. (Surly Michaelangelo was an amazing artist, but there were/are so many great artist that it can't be said whether or not he was amongst the finest (personally I find that an extremely arrogant point, made from a western prespective)) I regocnized it as a pitfall though, and therefor I agreed. But yeah stupid question.

 

[Wolfram23]

27%... but their explanations are lacking in validity sometimes.

Example:
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

As walking, cycling and taking the train are all less environmentally damaging than driving a car for the same journey, if you choose to drive when you could have used another mode of transport, you are guilty of unnecessarily damaging the environment.

ME: Ok... except that not all cars damage the environment. Not only are many cars very efficient and their pollutants are almost strictly limited to water vapour and CO2 (as in, plant food), but we're also getting hybrid and electric cars. They also list trains, for example... ok... coal trains? Diesel trains? What about all the mining it takes to make the trains and the tracks? Sorry but the test has it's own logic fails.

I also had "tension" on the Michealangelo question, because I think art is a matter of taste, but the question didn't ask if I thought he was objectively the best, therefore, in my subjective "taste," I think he is.

 

[Firehound]

I disagree with the test. It uses some things that don't make sense as tension For example, a person who believes Michelangelo is one of history's finest artists will get tension unnecessarily from believing art is the viewer's opinion.


20% BTW.

 

[Sidiron]

13% Not bad, considering the reliance on true/false answers to philosophical statements.
I'm not a raging hypocrite, yay.

 

[Dyme]

This test was bullshit. I want my time back.

 

[there is no spoon]

I have 27%, I think that this is kinda BS.

For example:

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 decriminalized

The effects of one persons drug use is rarely contained to just one person. What do they do when they run out of money for their drugs? or what they do when there high? Drugs don't just effect the user...

Read the earlier statement. "So long as they do not harm others" If I am high and just lying on my couch with a job that supports my casual drug use I am not harming anyone. In that sense I am pursuing my own ends. The clause "So long as they do not harm others" exempts the question from the assumption that said drug user(s) are harming other members of society with their actions.

 

[theguitarhero6]

I got 40%, partially because of my beliefs with religion which tend to more or less contradict every logical and scientific stance which I also believe in. *sigh* its things like this that really REALLY make me second guess my own Christianity..

 

[MuppeTeN]

40% Yei me!, What does this means? That I counter say what i think or something?

 

[rubinigosa]

This test is...fore lack of better word weird.Let me explain I got 20% and Questions 17 and 28 did aberrantly contradict each other but question 17 is asking if I believe that the truth is not always the truth and can depend on personal views and societal views.Yes, I believe that but number 28 is asking if I believe that the Holocaust did happen and it did it is a fact written and documented in history books and the majority of all people knows and believes this making this into the truth.But I did never say that it does not exists people that thinks that it did not happen making that into there truth.
Then we have the Michelangelo part...others have already explained why this part is weired and why I can agree with both.
Lastly we have questions number 16 and 21.Yes I think that alternative medicine is as valuable as mainstream medicine but that dose not mean that I dose not think that testing should be made before it is sold to the public.Not testing medicine is dangerous fore the people buying it.

 

[TiefBlau]

Use critical thinking skills and read my original argument (and the one I was responding too). I'm not arguing that 2 + 2 = 5. No one was arguing the logic of the presented world.

I WAS ARGUING THE LOGIC OF THE PRESENTED WORLD. More specifically, you quoted me arguing the logic of the presented world. If you want to argue ethics, you shouldn't have responded to me, because I was clearly arguing something entirely different. Why don't you take some of your own advice and apply critical thinking skills to what you read? Here's my original post, the post which you quoted from me.

That's clearly a logical contradiction and a source of ethical tension. You're saying that financial matters shouldn't matter if you're saving lives, and then you say that you don't want to help out third-world countries if it makes people poor. This cannot stand. It may feel like the right thing to say, but it's not logically sound.

Let's try some light close text analysis here. Not even arguing the bright-as-day meaning here and looking at the wording, I'd say that I'm clearly talking about things from a logical perspective, considering these two points to be taken from an "If x then y" perspective, stripping the points down to the strictly objective implications.

And no, of course you weren't arguing 2+2=5. You were arguing that I'm creating a false dilemma by saying that 2+2 either equals or doesn't equal 5, and that there are alternatives if you apply it to the real world, where you can add more numbers or take into account opportunity cost. For example,

Other posters and I were pointing out that this exercise presents false dilemma (and a Binary world), ethics was just an example of why there is a false dilemma. This false dilemma means that any underlying logic is not representative of the real world.

This.

For the record I'm reading this:
http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Concise-Tracy-Bowell/dp/0415471834/ref=dp_ob_title_bk?ie=UTF8&qid=1300282203&sr=8-1

What are you reading?

hahahahahahahahahahaha

oh wait your serious

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[Adventurer2626]

I don't think it was the most objective or specific (as far as defining stuff goes), but I think it's more or less accurate. 20%. I think philosophically a lot and have some beliefs, if you will, but there are still some things I'm iffy on. I spent 5 minutes trying to decide what to put for the non-physical existence after death question. There are a few things going into that such as separation of "planes of existence," components of being, existence of "the self," etc. I really hope there is but my current data suggests no.

 

[Chefodeath]

This quiz is stupid and weighted. The morons who wrote it are using blocky caricatures for what are really very sophisticated beliefs that people tend to hold. The thing was so predictable, I was able to break it and get a 0% just by putting in the bullshit answers they wanted.

 

[ninjapenguin981]

40% but I have no idea what that means.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Ladies and Gentlemen, step right up and get your free philosophical health check...

Heh, it amuses me that this entire test is more realistically a 'philosophy jargon' test. Oh ho! You didn't know what we EXACTLY meant by unnecessary! Hah! Or whatnot.

Hard to really nail things down like this without first agreeing on terminology. Sadly, this is why philosophy is a study that is often sniggered at by engineer types.

Engineers Define terms to explain reality.
Philosophers Define reality to explain terms.

 

[Jamesfox849]

Oh right, this test.

This test is complete bullshit, I get what it's trying to do, but the way the questions are set up you're almost guaranteed to be called a hypocrite on atleast two choices.

Why? because there's not enough choices! Everything isn't yes or no, there are maybe's and exceptions, and being forced into a controversial viewpoint isn't the same as maintaining that viewpoint.

 

[DanielDeFig]

Fair enough, you're arguing the point that the quiz doesn't really consider. It should probably be adjusted for such. What was the point you were making about euthanasia, though?

Ah! Arguing against euthanasia. If you feel up to discussing this i will try to indulge you (must go to sleep now, but will be online again within 8-10 hours).

The argument goes as follows: A sane, psychologically stable human being, is incapable of actively choosing to end their own life. We have seen examples of people who "decide" to end their own lives, but these people's minds have all bee disturbed and warped by psychological factors (usually depression, but anything that disturbs your sane psychological state counts. Including alcohol and drugs). This means that euthanasia will always be wrong, on the basis that no doctor will never get "legal consent" to euthanize someone.(think rape and other instances where consent seems to have been given, but as other factors were involved to heavily affect the mind of the "consenting" person, it doesn't count legally)

A more basic argument is on the basis of ethics. Where the action of killing a person (including yourself) will never be ethical. But that's if you buy into Deontological Ethics, that define ethics based on the act rather than the end result (Utilitarianism. Blech!).

 

[timeadept]

I managed a 13% and a low. It only caught me in logical contradictions twice. One on the immorality of genocide verses the relativity of morality. And another on personal freedom, that as long as you don't hurt others you should be allowed to do whatever you want but that drugs for recreational use should be discriminated against.

I was very pleased to see that you could opt not to answer questions though. especially questions that contradicted themselves. But i have a hard time believing that so many people actually managed to get low as well. If it's true then we must have an exceptional demographic on the escapist. Because i turn on the news and see the raging idiocy of glen beck and, sadly many politicians and large groups of people. But if there are this many sensible people, why the hell can't we all stand up and work together and overwhelm the minority who have their own agendas to push on others?

*EDIT* i think i may have made a mistake in writing the last paragraph, but i'll leave it there because i'm not quite sure what mistake i made.

AH! yes, there it is. I've overgeneralized the results, expanding their meaning to cover areas that they were never meant to. More so that there is no right or wrong for any of these questions, except when you consider your answers relative to yourself. A low tension quotient does not imply similar values between people, it only says that your values do not conflict with yourself.