Topic: The Culture
A dare for the readers: Take an online quiz and find out your "true" philosophical soul-mate!
Here is something beyond curious.
Here is the link to ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY SELECTOR ...
The hook:
These questions reflect the dilemmas that have captured the attention of history's most significant ethical philosophers. Answer the questions as best you can. When you're finished answering the questions, press "Select Philosophy" to generate your customized match of ethical philosophers/philosophies. The list orders the philosophers/philosophies according to their compatibility with your expressed opinions on ethics. Click on a philosopher/philosophy to see a summary and links. We hope you enjoy this selector and we encourage your further philosophical explorations. - Tara Anderson
Two posts below was an item on capital punishment, and how justice may not be the same as vengeance and those sorts of things - you know, morality and ethics and stuff like that.
Why did I say what I said? Into which "school" of philosophy do I fall? I took this quiz and here are the folks with whom I align.
And I always thought I was a cynic!
1. Kant (100%)
2. John Stuart Mill (89%)
3. Jean-Paul Sartre (87%)
4. Jeremy Bentham (73%)
5. Stoics (63%)
6. Ayn Rand (62%)
7. Aquinas (59%)
8. Prescriptivism (56%)
9. Epicureans (55%)
10. Aristotle (55%)
11. Spinoza (51%)
12. David Hume (46%)
13. Nietzsche (38%)
14. Plato (35%)
15. St. Augustine (32%)
16. Nel Noddings (30%)
17. Ockham (28%)
18. Thomas Hobbes (25%)
19. Cynics (25%)
And Tara gives me these summaries, which I find a bit silly.
From the top down:
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
... We can make a priori judgments; the negation of such judgments would a logical absurdity because a priori knowledge is known without sensory data. (huh?)
... We combine a priori and a posteriori knowledge
... We have freedom
... God is not essential for his moral argumentation
... The objective facts about the human knowledge leads to Kant's morality
... We must act ought of a sense of duty in order to be moral
... Moral action does not come out of following inclinations
... Moral standards must be followed without qualification
... We must always act so that the means of our actions could be a universal law
... We must always treat people as ends not means
Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873)
... The Utilitarian principle is correct when the quality of pleasures is accounted for
... Liberty is the most important pleasure
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
... When we choose something, we affirm the value of our choice because we have chosen it above other choices
... When we choose something for ourselves, we should choose it for all people.
... We must be consistent in our interpretations of moral situations regardless of whom the agent is.
... Logic cannot help us specific situations
... Making conscious moral choices is more significant than consistently following moral guidelines
... The conflict between the interests of two people is in the end, irresolvable
And at the bottom of my list?
Cynicism
... All the fruits of civilization are worthless
... Salvation is found in a rejection of society and a return to simple ascetic living
... Virtue consists in finding salvation in oneself
_______
Take the quiz and see where you fit in with the big guns of Western philosophy.
And you might want to check out a little Austrian humor from Universit?t Innsbruck where you'll find A Non-Philosopher's Guide to Philosophical Terms
a posteriori:
(Non-Philosopher) things you think of when you're sitting down
(Philosopher) knowledge which is the result of and is based upon experience of some kind
a priori:
(Non-Philosopher) something you've thought of to head your "things to do" list
(Philosopher) things you think of when you're sitting down, in an armchair, usually with a snifter of brandy in one hand
Utilitarian:
(Non-Philosopher) almost precisely cubical and made of concrete, probably a multi-story car park
(Philosopher) one who believes that the morally right action is the one with the best consequences, so far as the distribution of happiness is concerned; a creature generally believed to be endowed with the propensity to ignore their own drowning children in order to push buttons which will cause mild sexual gratification in a warehouse full of rabbits
... and so on and so forth
Posted by Alan at 19:59 PST
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Updated: Monday, 15 December 2003 20:18 PST
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