Ethical Philosophy Selector

I found a nifty Ethical Philosophy quiz at the indispensable Evagenlical Outpost. Joe gets a passing evangelical grade with Augustine and Acquinas as his top two. My results:

St. Augustine (100%)
Aquinas (90%)
Ockham (76%)
Kant (57%)
Spinoza (57%)
Plato (55%)
Jeremy Bentham (50%)
Aristotle (47%)
John Stuart Mill (43%)
Nel Noddings (39%)
Prescriptivism (37%)
Jean-Paul Sartre (32%)
Ayn Rand (32%)
Cynics (27%)
David Hume (19%)
Stoics (19%)
Epicureans (16%)
Nietzsche (14%)
Thomas Hobbes (0%)

Some quick observations:

I’m 57% Spinoza? I must protest. I have never attempted to solve an ethical problem with a compass and a straightedge. Not even 57% of one.
I really don’t know anything about Hobbes, or why I should be so adamantly not-him.
I didn’t like question number three. I wanted to answer A, but it was obvious that they meant that in the Platonic sense. The proper origin or morality isn’t completely unique and transcendant, but then it really isn’t just “God’s Will,” etiher. The proper origin of morality is identical with God’s nature, so it is indeed transcendant, but not somehow separate from God himself as “unique” would imply. It is not, however, some arbitrary decision of his made logically after the fact of his existence.
Number four…gee, do you think A was supposed to be the Augustinian answer? Heh. I picked B, Augustine Lite: a third less gunpoint conversion.
Number seven can make you Kantian real quick. Again, I picked the Kant Lite answer: what’s good for the goose is probably also good for the gander.
I answered C for number ten, and still I got a 50% rating for Jeremy Betham. I guess I don’t mind it if people experience pleasure as a result of moral choices…
A 32% rating for Ayn Rand…I guess she wouldn’t like my answer of B for number nine. No wonder Vodka Pundit wouldn’t take my challenge. He’s probably appaled by my immorality!

Posted by Tim on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 at 6:32:39 am PST
Category: Miscellany
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