The moral of our story

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.08: You are more permissive than average (0.25).

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00: You are less likely to recommend societal interference in matters of moral wrongdoing, in the form of prevention or punishment, than average (0.19).

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.00: You are less likely than average (0.25) to see moral wrongdoing in universal terms – that is, without regard to prevailing cultural norms and social conventions.

An interesting test from The Philosophers’ Magazine on “Morality, Taboos and the ‘Yuk Factor.'” Thought-provoking stuff (and no GIFs or JPGs to link to).

I think one of the reasons for the particularly low (permissive) scores is the extent to which I already try to separate my aesthetic from my moral sense. I think it is that confusion, frankly, that leads to a lot of the religious and moral conflict in the world. (I also think that there are differences sometimes between what’s wise and smart, and what’s moral; i.e., there are issues where morality is not present where you can still point to wise and unwise courses. Distinguishing between those different types of “wrong” is also critical.)

As far as the second two scores, first off, I’m willing to limit society primarily to dealing with what works, and put the onus of what’s morally right (and the consequences/punishment/reward thereof) to God. Society playing God rarely works well (and, I suspect, torques God off). That being the case, often what determines what works is what’s expected, i.e., what’s been agreed to by a society as a whole. That makes a lot of cross-cultural issues a lot simpler to judge (even if they seem disturbing to me).

My two cents, anyway.