Harvard's Moral Sense Test

[Boudicea]

http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu/

[izzie]

1. How did you ever find that? Was interesting

:think:

[Boudicea]

2. My brainiac brother referred me to it

[toddzilla]

3. interesting, but very flawed

i found the questions to be overly simple.

[Nikia]

4. Why don't people have respect for trains?

Perhaps other people got a different version of the test. Mine involved a speeding train and people on the tracks. Realalistically, you should never count on a train stopping for you. Trains are usually relatively loud so it isn't like you wouldn't hear it coming if you were walking on tracks. Or was that point of the point of thes test?

[Piltdown13]

5. I think the unreality was part of the point of the test.

I read some of the background and FAQ's (somehow I thought you got some sort of result immediately and was investigating why all I got was a thank-you) and it seems that previous research has suggested that slightly unrealistic situations are slightly better than more realistic ones at eliciting the kinds of data they are looking for. I suppose I can see why -- if the situation is in some way unrealistic, perhaps it's easier for people to step back and apply whatever "universal" moral principles they have rather than responding to minutiae of the given scenario. I got two train scenarios and one rather shocking one involving a doctor. When reading all of them, I was immediately criticizing them as unrealistic and had to repeatedly remind myself to use only the information provided and to make no further assumptions.

[Deja Q]

6. MST2K3?

I love the Ethnicity question. I wrote in "human", isn't that good enough?

Question 1: If the train was moving so fast that the 5 men couldn't get off in time, she and the guy she'd otherwise shove would get killed too. However, given what they want I answered YES.

Question 2: Gee, another train question. That's a bit of a letdown... The question is, why didn't they screen the train conductor for such potentially squeamish positions? A competent one wouldn't have fainted. But, they're setting up a situation as badly as modern sketch comedy tries to make a sketch. So I answered YES.

Question 3: Man, these Harvard people have a fetish for fast trains. Assuming they're men, do they have very small penises with premature ejaculation problems? If they're women, should they be cruising bars instead?! Somebody's going to get squashed in the end, there's no other way out unfortunately. Once again, YES.

Question 4: Geez, for once it's not a train question. What an oddity! The question should be, if the patient cannot afford Drug X, is it moral for Dr Irwin to still give him the medication... However, this test is more of a college kid's 'I have nothing better to do' test than anything serious. This one is obvious. YES.

They wanted justification for #s 1 and 2. Here is my response:


What should Nancy do, sit by and let 5 men die? Given that this train is moving so fast that nobody can get off of it in time, they'll all end up squashed anyway - one person being squashed won't stop such a fast moving train. Or should Nancy sacrifice herself? You didn't include an option for that.

Similar to question 1, rather... Again, doing nothing amounts to murder anyway. May as well save as many people as possible. But y'all never asked if I would actually do it; only if it were "morally permissible" - that's a big difference. And this man with his back turned must be deaf...

[Nikia]

7. All mine were train questions

I said no to the Nancy question. Maybe Nancy should throw herself at the train instead of involving the innocent bystander who knew not to be in the path of the speeding train unlike the five other morons. I wondered about if one person would really be able to stop it and if Nancy had time to push the man, why didn't the five have time to get off the tracks. Why didn't the five hear the train?

[radwriter0555]

8. I'd say those trains need some overhaulilng.

All I gots to say about THAT.

[Piltdown13]

9. I'll say!

I went back and looked at the test again (didn't submit my answers again, so I'm not screwing up their research) and got four train questions.

The health care system in their little universe could use some help too -- the non-train, non-drowning child question I got asked basically if it would be morally permissible for a doctor to kill a perfectly healthy person in the clinic for a physical in order to harvest her organs and save five other people waiting at the hospital for transplants!