Pejman Yousefzadeh got it from Daniel Drezner. "It" is the "Moral Sense Test," hosted at Harvard. As Drezner writes, "It's an eight question test in which an action is described and then you are asked to award damages."
And it's fairly ridiculous. That, of course, depends on how generous you're feeling as you read the test: even the Catholicism of my upbringing had a more coherent vision of what morality is. But I wasn't reminded of the teachings of Holy Mother Church so much as I was of the opening statements in Ayn Rand's "The Ethics of Emergencies:"
The psychological results of altruism may be observed in the fact that a great many people approach the subject of ethics by asking such questions as : "Should one risk one's life to help a man who is: a) drowning, b) trapped in a fire, c) stepping in front of a speeding truck, d) hanging by his fingernails over an abyss?"
"Consider," Rand goes on, "the implications of that approach. If a man accepts the ethics of altruism, he suffers the following consequences (in proportion to the degree of his acceptance)," and I was particularly struck by the aptness of these two points:
3. A nightmare view of existence -- since he believes that men are trapped in a "malevolent universe" where disasters are the constant and primary concern of their lives.
4. And, in fact, a lethargic indifference to ethics, a hopelessly cynical amorality -- since his questions involve situations which he is not likely ever to encounter, which bear no relation to the actual problems of his own life and thus leave him to live without any moral principles whatever. (italics mine)
Apparently the average test taker awarded $72,000 across all questions. Drezner says that he awarded an average of $129, while Pejman says that he awarded a "mere" $238. I hereby declare a contest: to win, you must guess what I awarded.
First prize will be a free one-year subscription to The Platinum Edition of The Anger of Compassion.
(NOTE: "The Ethics of Emergencies" is available here and here.)
Posted by Craig Ceely at July 18, 2007 06:33 PM