PHILOSOPHY Philosophical health check-up

[Kratos]

The Philosophical Health Test

An interactive test of the consistency of your philosophical beliefs.

www.philosophyexperiments.com

Take this quick quiz to find out if you hold any conflicting philosophical views. It's not comprehensive, providing only a brief overview but it's interesting nonetheless. Post your results

 

[Adagio]

Interesting. Got 47% out of a 27% average

 

[Hargeysa]

I got 13%. I got 2 conflicting views:

1) There's an all-powerful god & to allow a child to suffer is morally reprehensible.

2) Individuals have sole right over their bodies & voluntary euthanasia should remain illegal.

 

[Kratos]

Interesting. Got 47% out of a 27% average

Which ones did you get a tension for?

my results:

#saveTheEnvironmentButILoveCars

 

[Kratos]

I got 13%. I got 2 conflicting views:

1) There's an all-powerful god & to allow a child to suffer is morally reprehensible.

2) Individuals have sole right over their bodies & voluntary euthanasia should remain illegal.

First one is the classic problem of evil, the second is an interesting dilemma

 

[Hargeysa]

First one is the classic problem of evil, the second is an interesting dilemma

Agreed.

The second one is interesting. I believe individuals have sole rights over their bodies, and it's up to them if they wanna commit suicide.

But medical professionals shouldn't be forced to help them end their lives (if they don't want to). I think that makes sense to me.

Edit: for euthanasia, you need someone's help to end your life, right?

 

[NordicSomali]

33%

 

[Kratos]

Agreed.

The second one is interesting. I believe individuals have sole rights over their bodies, and it's up to them if they wanna commit suicide.

But medical professionals shouldn't be forced to help them others end their lives (if they don't want to).

Does that make sense?

Yeah it does and I agree with that too. And yeah you do. afaik, in all countries where it’s legal, only a doctor can do it and you have to have first attended counselling, among other preventative measures

 

[Kratos]

33%

Do share your tensions with us

 

[NordicSomali]

Do share your tensions with us

Statements 10 and 23: Is there an all-good, all-powerful God?

30% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God
And also that:
To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

These two beliefs together generate what is known as 'The Problem of Evil'. The problem is simple: if God is all-powerful, loving and good, that means he can do what he wants and will do what is morally right. But surely this means that he would not allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly, as he could easily prevent it. Yet he does. Much infant suffering is the result of human action, but much is also due to natural causes, such as disease, flood or famine. In both cases, God could stop it, yet he does not.

Attempts to explain this apparent contradiction are known as 'theodicies' and many have been produced. Most conclude that God allows suffering to help us grow spiritually and/or to allow the greater good of human freedom. Whether these theodicies are adequate is the subject of continuing debate.


Statements 24 and 3: How much must I protect the environment?

58% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

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.

The problem here is the word 'unnecessary'. Very few things are necessary, if by necessary it is meant essential to survival. But you might want to argue that much of your use of cars or aeroplanes is necessary, not for survival, but for a certain quality of life. The difficulty is that the consequence of this response is that it then becomes hard to be critical of others, for it seems that 'necessary' simply means what one judges to be important for oneself. A single plane journey may add more pollutants to the atmosphere than a year's use of a high-emission vehicle. Who is guilty of causing unnecessary environmental harm here?


Statements 2 and 9: Can we please ourselves?

26% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

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.


Statements 20 and 13: Is positive discrimination justified?

8% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
In certain circumstances, it might be desirable to discriminate positively in favour of a person as recompense for harms done to him/her in the past
And disagreed that:
It is not always right to judge individuals solely on their merits

Positive discrimination means that factors other than the actual abilities of a person are taken into account when deciding how to treat them. This means that, under positive discrimination measures, people are not judged solely on their merits. So in order to support positive discrimination, you have to accept that it is sometimes right not to judge individuals on their merits. Alternatively, if you want to maintain that individuals must always be judged on their merits, you must give up your belief in positive discrimination. More sophisticated responses to this tension might include the idea that people should be judged, not according to their actual merits, but according to the merits they would have if everyone had been given the same opportunities. One problem with this is that it is very difficult to judge what these merits would have been.


Statements 22 and 15: What is the seat of the self?

37% of the 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 cnsciousness 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.

 

[Adagio]

Which ones did you get a tension for?

my results:
View attachment 212096

#saveTheEnvironmentButILoveCars

Is disagreeing with not journeying by car if able to walk and so forth just because you like cars? That's damaging to the environment though. Re agreeing with environment not being damaged in pursuit of human ends, wouldn't you say there's nothing greater than striving for human ends whether or not the damaging of the environment is necessary or not?

I got tensions for:

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

You agreed that:
Individuals have sole rights over their own bodies
And also that:
Voluntary euthanasia should remain illegal

You agreed that:
Having made a choice, it is always possible that one might have chosen otherwise
And also that:
The future is fixed, how one's life unfolds is a matter of destiny

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

You agreed that:
There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God
And also that:
To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

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

 

[Kratos]

Statements 10 and 23: Is there an all-good, all-powerful God?

30% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God
And also that:
To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

These two beliefs together generate what is known as 'The Problem of Evil'. The problem is simple: if God is all-powerful, loving and good, that means he can do what he wants and will do what is morally right. But surely this means that he would not allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly, as he could easily prevent it. Yet he does. Much infant suffering is the result of human action, but much is also due to natural causes, such as disease, flood or famine. In both cases, God could stop it, yet he does not.

Attempts to explain this apparent contradiction are known as 'theodicies' and many have been produced. Most conclude that God allows suffering to help us grow spiritually and/or to allow the greater good of human freedom. Whether these theodicies are adequate is the subject of continuing debate.


Statements 24 and 3: How much must I protect the environment?

58% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

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.

The problem here is the word 'unnecessary'. Very few things are necessary, if by necessary it is meant essential to survival. But you might want to argue that much of your use of cars or aeroplanes is necessary, not for survival, but for a certain quality of life. The difficulty is that the consequence of this response is that it then becomes hard to be critical of others, for it seems that 'necessary' simply means what one judges to be important for oneself. A single plane journey may add more pollutants to the atmosphere than a year's use of a high-emission vehicle. Who is guilty of causing unnecessary environmental harm here?


Statements 2 and 9: Can we please ourselves?

26% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

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.


Statements 20 and 13: Is positive discrimination justified?

8% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
In certain circumstances, it might be desirable to discriminate positively in favour of a person as recompense for harms done to him/her in the past
And disagreed that:
It is not always right to judge individuals solely on their merits

Positive discrimination means that factors other than the actual abilities of a person are taken into account when deciding how to treat them. This means that, under positive discrimination measures, people are not judged solely on their merits. So in order to support positive discrimination, you have to accept that it is sometimes right not to judge individuals on their merits. Alternatively, if you want to maintain that individuals must always be judged on their merits, you must give up your belief in positive discrimination. More sophisticated responses to this tension might include the idea that people should be judged, not according to their actual merits, but according to the merits they would have if everyone had been given the same opportunities. One problem with this is that it is very difficult to judge what these merits would have been.


Statements 22 and 15: What is the seat of the self?

37% of the 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 cnsciousness 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.

That last one is really interesting

 

[Kratos]

Is disagreeing with not journeying by car if able to walk and so forth just because you like cars? That's damaging to the environment though. Re agreeing with environment not being damaged in pursuit of human ends, wouldn't you say there's nothing greater than striving for human ends whether or not the damaging of the environment is necessary or not?

Nah the car comment was a joke. I’m not sure if I would say there’s nothing greater than striving solely for human ends, but even if that was the case, damaging the environment affects us negatively anyway. I mean the whole point of trying to curb emissions is to slow down the current rate of global warming so ecosystems don’t erode, coastal cities don’t end up underwater, future generations don’t inherit less inhatbitable lands etc. So I would say you can’t strive for human ends without caring for the environment, it’s counterproductive.

 

[Omar del Sur]

I got 13%. I got 2 conflicting views:

1) There's an all-powerful god & to allow a child to suffer is morally reprehensible.

what?? so the thing is just atheist propaganda then.

so much of philosophy is just atheist or anti-religious propaganda.

in our times, many of the philosophers are preachers of atheism but in earlier times when it would have been more difficult for them to get away with openly calling to atheism, they would just push the envelope further towards atheism, as far towards atheism as they could get away with.

what even was Immanuel Kant's philosophy for example? he discussed various topics but amongst them were his ethical theories- and what is Kantian ethics?

the whole aim of Kant's theories on ethics was to develop an ethics based on "reason".... ie an ethics removed from religion!

I hate how philosophy is seen as this having this holy aura around it when in reality a lot of it is just garbage and moral subversion. it was corrupt all the way back to Plato.

Plato advocated that women should be held in common... or however you want to put it... that children should be property of and raised by the state so that their parents cannot pass on "superstition" to their children... he advocated a totalitarian society governed by intellectuals who believed in his degenerate theories.... his book the Republic is an ancient blueprint for Communism and the New World Order. he has some connection with those secret societies and the elites. this is why people are taught to revere him like he was some sort of holy figure.

Socrates probably got what he had coming. The athenians accused him of morally corrupting the youth and they were probably right.

 

[Adagio]

what?? so the thing is just atheist propaganda then.

so much of philosophy is just atheist or anti-religious propaganda.

in our times, many of the philosophers are preachers of atheism but in earlier times when it would have been more difficult for them to get away with openly calling to atheism, they would just push the envelope further towards atheism, as far towards atheism as they could get away with.

what even was Immanuel Kant's philosophy for example? he discussed various topics but amongst them were his ethical theories- and what is Kantian ethics?

the whole aim of Kant's theories on ethics was to develop an ethics based on "reason".... ie an ethics removed from religion!

Yeah very true, well said.

Kantian ethics is essentially to treat every person as an end in themselves, and to never treat another as an object for one’s own natural interests. It's a general principle for making ethical decisions and is based on good ideas and instincts which doesn't completely hold up imo.

His philosophy however is a run around of how he thought he knew what he was thinking but then he thought he wasn’t thinking what he thought. Where did the thought come from, from him or did he come from the thought?

Really, his philosophy is categorised around the notion of categorical & hypothetical imperatives. The former is based on Kant's universalising maxims: only follow maxims which you will to see become a universal rule. You must not lie because everyone lying causes social disorder, (you can find this in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason). Whereas the latter paves an understanding for morality, and whether your action is measured solely by the utilitarian "enlightened" self-interest of that action.

 

[Kratos]

what?? so the thing is just atheist propaganda then.

so much of philosophy is just atheist or anti-religious propaganda.

in our times, many of the philosophers are preachers of atheism but in earlier times when it would have been more difficult for them to get away with openly calling to atheism, they would just push the envelope further towards atheism, as far towards atheism as they could get away with.

They explain what they mean by it in the analysis part:

These two beliefs together generate what is known as 'The Problem of Evil'. The problem is simple: if God is all-powerful, loving and good, that means he can do what he wants and will do what is morally right. But surely this means that he would not allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly, as he could easily prevent it. Yet he does. Much infant suffering is the result of human action, but much is also due to natural causes, such as disease, flood or famine. In both cases, God could stop it, yet he does not.

Attempts to explain this apparent contradiction are known as 'theodicies' and many have been produced. Most conclude that God allows suffering to help us grow spiritually and/or to allow the greater good of human freedom. Whether these theodicies are adequate is the subject of continuing debate.

If god is all-good, kind, loving and merciful, then you do need a sophisticated explanation of why there is evil and suffering. Of course, that's what religions provide an answer for.

 

[Dualke]

I sensing some intellectual dishonesty in some of these tensions:

Statements 19 and 7: Is the unnatural wrong?

10% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
Proper sanitation and medicines are generally good for a society
And also that:
Homosexuality is wrong because it is unnatural

You believe that something is wrong if it is unnatural. Yet you believe that sanitation and medicine are good. But aren't these also unnatural? What is natural about sophisticated modern sewage systems and the domestic supply of clean water? What is natural about chemotherapy or other sophisticated medical treatments? So the first problem here is that it is simply not true that most people think all things unnatural are bad. So that means being unnatural is no reason for homosexuality to be considered wrong. (There is also the question of in what sense homosexuality is supposed to be unnatural). The second problem is a logical one. Because something 'is' the case, it doesn't follow that it 'ought' to be the case. 'Cancer kills' is true, but that doesn't mean 'cancer should (in the moral sense of the word) kill'. So there is a problem in trying to derive matters of moral value directly from matters of pure fact.

 

[Kratos]

I sensing some intellectual dishonesty in some of these tensions:

Statements 19 and 7: Is the unnatural wrong?

10% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:
Proper sanitation and medicines are generally good for a society
And also that:
Homosexuality is wrong because it is unnatural

You believe that something is wrong if it is unnatural. Yet you believe that sanitation and medicine are good. But aren't these also unnatural? What is natural about sophisticated modern sewage systems and the domestic supply of clean water? What is natural about chemotherapy or other sophisticated medical treatments? So the first problem here is that it is simply not true that most people think all things unnatural are bad. So that means being unnatural is no reason for homosexuality to be considered wrong. (There is also the question of in what sense homosexuality is supposed to be unnatural). The second problem is a logical one. Because something 'is' the case, it doesn't follow that it 'ought' to be the case. 'Cancer kills' is true, but that doesn't mean 'cancer should (in the moral sense of the word) kill'. So there is a problem in trying to derive matters of moral value directly from matters of pure fact.

I think with this one it's just semantics. If you think that homosexuality is wrong then you are probably inclined to agree with that statement at face value but from a religious point of view, homosexuality is not wrong just because it's unnatural. But if you do think that it being unnatural is the main or sole reason why it's wrong, then technically it is a contradiction, and saying that unnatural things are immoral just leads to a whole lot of other problems.