Taboo and Morality Quiz

[Adagio]

I scored the highest of everybody in this thread
I guess that's because I took most of the questions a step further than the tester writer intended (I believe)
Like the story about the guy who 'likes' birds. If he was the only one alive on the earth I couldn't care less about what turns him on, but that's not the case. Since we're living in a world where there's probably lots of guys like him who likes to do it with dead animals, which is a scary thought. What if one of these guys works at some smaller company where they pack chickens, but during his work one day (when nobody is around) starts to "play around" with the chickens in the house? I wouldn't be suprised if this could actually happen... or already has

But based on the results, I believe I'm just "over-thinking" the situations


Also I can't believe that anyone could have sex with a chicken without getting harmed in any way (not just physically)

[Odin]

Results

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.37.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.40.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.33.


There was no inconsistency in the way that you responded to the questions in this activity. You did not evaluate the actions depicted in these scenarios to be across the board wrong. And anyway you indicated that an action can be wrong even if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. However, there is a tension in your responses in that you indicated that you do see harm in at least some of the activities depicted here. Given that the actions described in these scenarios are private and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm, it isn't clear where you think the harm might lie. More about this below...

The "Yuk Factor"

The other tension in moral reasoning that we hope this activity helps to elucidate has to do with the role of reason and emotion in moral judgements. One of the interesting things which Haidt et al found when exploring people's reactions to the scenarios featured in this activity is that people who have very strong emotional responses to these stories frequently find it difficult to provide an explanation or justification for what they are feeling. According to Steve Pinker, this is because our moral convictions are rooted not so much in reason, as in the evolutionary make-up of our minds. In his words: "People have gut feelings that give them emphatic moral convictions, and they struggle to rationalize them after the fact. These convictions may have little to do with moral judgements that one could justify to others in terms of their effects on happiness or suffering. They arise instead from the neurobiological and evolutionary design of the organs we call moral emotions." (The Blank Slate).

The dangers of rooting moral attitudes in emotion are obvious. It means that a "yuk-factor" might lead us to condemn actions - and even people - we have no good reason to condemn. For example, consider the fate of the untouchables in the Indian caste system. They were not allowed to touch people from the higher castes; they were not allowed to drink from the same wells; on public occasions, they had to sit at a distance from everybody else; and in some regions, even contact with the shadow of an untouchable person was seen as polluting and necessitated a purification ritual. Such prohibitions might sit easily with a certain kind of raw sentiment. They are much harder, if not impossible, to justify in the light of reason.

However, one must be careful not simply to assume that emotion has no role to play in moral reasoning. Indeed, some philosophers claim that it is just a mistake to think that moral judgement involves anything other than emotion. A. J. Ayer, for example, in line with the dictates of his logical positivism, argued that ethical statements are nothing more than the expression of emotional attitudes. He denied that it was possible for ethical statements to be factually true. Rather, they are exclamations of the form 'Hurrah for X!'.

Even if one does not accept this kind of extreme "emotivism", it is still fairly easy to see that emotion can play some kind of role in good moral reasoning. Empathy, for example, would seem to be an important component of a proper moral outlook. It is hard to imagine that the atrocities of the holocaust would have occurred had its protagonists been more able to imagine themselves in the emotional position of their victims. Indeed, the philosopher Jonathan Glover has argued that many of the atrocities of the last century were possible precisely because people's moral emotions had been switched off.

Nevertheless, it is probably right that we are suspicious of moral judgements which are rooted in the "yuk-factor". Steve Pinker, in The Blank Slate, puts it like this: "The difference between a defensible moral position and an atavistic gut feeling is that with the former we can give reasons why our conviction is valid. We can explain why torture and murder and rape are wrong, or why we should oppose discrimination and injustice. On the other hand, no good reasons can be produced to show why homosexuality should be suppressed or why the races should be segregated. And the good reasons for a moral position are not pulled out of thin air: they always have to do with what makes people better off or worse off, and are grounded in the logic that we have to treat other people in the way that we demand they treat us."

[Barinthus]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.27.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.40.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.00.

What do these results mean?

Are you thinking straight about morality?

Although you do not evaluate the actions depicted in these scenarios to be across the board wrong, it is not entirely clear why you think that anything in them is morally problematic. You don't think an action can be morally wrong if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. Yet the actions described in these scenarios are private like this and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm. Possibly an argument could be made that the people undertaking these actions are harmed in some way by them. But you don't think that an action can be morally wrong solely for the reason that it harms the person undertaking it. More significantly, when asked about each scenario, in no instance did you respond that harm had resulted. Consequently, it is a puzzle why you think that any of the actions depicted here are questionable morally speaking.

shrug

[Barinthus]

Would your answer be any different if this man had a farm full of live chickens and he would once in a while slaughter a chicken specifically for to have sex with its corpse. Then eat it afterwards.

Is there a difference between doing that and buying a dead chicken from a local supermarket?

This also remind me of one story a comedian told once (George Carlin I think) - imagine you have a friend who is dying of cancer or whatever. In the hospital, he or she begs you for one last sex and you agree (relucantly or not). However as you are just about to climax, your friend dies. Do you stop immediately or finish the act and effectively engage in an act of necrophila?

[SlowwHand]

Sex with a chicken before cooking. Ok then.

Results
Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.63.
Your Interference Factor is: 0.20.
Your Universalising Factor is: 0.80.

Taboo - The Results

How did you do compared to other people?

Taboo has been played 34063 times.

Your Moralising Quotient of 0.63 compares to an average Moralising Quotient of 0.25. This means that as far as the events depicted in the scenarios featured in this activity are concerned you are less permissive than average.

Your Interference Factor of 0.20 compares to an average Interference Factor of 0.15. This means that as far as the events depicted in the scenarios featured in this activity are concerned you are more likely to recommend societal interference in matters of moral wrongdoing, in the form of prevention or punishment, than average.

Your Universalising Factor of 0.80 compares to an average Universalising Factor of 0.38. This means you are more likely than average to see moral wrongdoing in universal terms - that is, without regard to prevailing cultural norms and social conventions (at least as far as the events depicted in the scenarios featured in this activity are concerned).

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Kassiopeia

Don't worry, you are not alone, I got the same

[Lawrence of Arabia]

zeroes across the board.

[Carolus Rex]

My results

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.30.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.20.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.33.

And I completely agree with Last Conformist!

Carolus

[SlowwHand]

A zero. No comment.

[Patroklos]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.50.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.40.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.50.

[SpencerH]

Results

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.07.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.00.

What do these results mean?

Are you thinking straight about morality?

You see very little wrong in the actions depicted in these scenarios. However, to the extent that you do, it is a moot point how you might justify it. You don't think an action can be morally wrong if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. Yet the actions described in these scenarios at least seem to be private like this and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm. Possibly an argument could be made that the people undertaking these actions are harmed in some way by them. But you don't think that an action can be morally wrong solely for the reason that it harms the person undertaking it. More significantly, when asked about each scenario, in no instance did you respond that harm had resulted. Consequently, it is a puzzle why you think that any of the actions depicted here are of questionable morality.

Simplistic nonsense

[KrazyHorse]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.00.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: -1.

What do these results mean?

Are you thinking straight about morality?

You see nothing wrong in the actions depicted in these scenarios. Consequently, there is no inconsistency in the way that you responded to the questions in this activity. However, it is interesting to note that had you judged any of these acts to be morally problematic, it is hard to see how this might have been justified. You don't think that an act can be morally wrong if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. The actions described in these scenarios are private like this and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm. One possibility might be that the people undertaking these acts are in some way harmed by them. But you indicated that you don't think that an act can be morally wrong solely for the reason that it harms the person undertaking it. So, as you probably realised, even this doesn't seem to be enough to make the actions described in these scenarios morally problematic in terms of your moral outlook. Probably, in your own terms, you were right to adopt a morally permissive view.

[Jon Miller]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.43.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.20.

Your Universalising Factor is: 1.00.

there were times when no harm was claimed to be done..

but I still considered harm to be there, just because no guilt is felt does not mean that no self harm is done..

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Dauphin

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.33.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.20.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.50.

A few of my answers were difficult to give because I found it hard to accept that incest or sex with frozen chickens does not harm the person performing the act, at least a psychological level. Yet they wanted me to dissassociate my expectations and reality from the scenarios. Yet moralism requires reality and expectations imho.

these are both things that I thought

that sex between siblings, as well as sex with frozen chickens harms the participants...

without consideration to children.. or being an upstanding citizen...

Jon Miller

[Boris Godunov]

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.00.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: -1.

What do these results mean?

Are you thinking straight about morality?

You see nothing wrong in the actions depicted in these scenarios. Consequently, there is no inconsistency in the way that you responded to the questions in this activity. However, it is interesting to note that had you judged any of these acts to be morally problematic, it is hard to see how this might have been justified. You don't think that an act can be morally wrong if it is entirely private and no one, not even the person doing the act, is harmed by it. The actions described in these scenarios are private like this and it was specified as clearly as possible that they didn't involve harm. One possibility might be that the people undertaking these acts are in some way harmed by them. But you indicated that you don't think that an act can be morally wrong solely for the reason that it harms the person undertaking it. So, as you probably realised, even this doesn't seem to be enough to make the actions described in these scenarios morally problematic in terms of your moral outlook. Probably, in your own terms, you were right to adopt a morally permissive view.

Meh. I responded "yes" to several of the questions asking if the actions would bother me. Just because something bothers me doesn't mean I think it's "morally wrong," though. I guess this accurately reflects that.