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Monday, August 22, 2011

A Moral Dilemna



Take this test and find out how you stack against 1500 others who answered this question.

You pass by a small child drowning in a shallow pond and you are the only one around. If you pick up the child, she will survive and your pants will be ruined. Picking up the child is _______________.

(Your choices: permissible, obligatory, forbidden)

I've long since frequented the question "Is morality possible outside of religion?", and this paper (by Hauser and Singer) would be a good jump-off point to study this question from an academic point of view, sans hysteria. (Questions surrounding these topics tend to be high in it, hence, the disclaimer.)

Here is the link to the paper, along with two more questions.
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/recent/HauserSingerMoralRelig05.pdf

More on this in a later post.

1 comment:

  1. How old is this article? I've never been to the US, but I've heard that now prayer is forbidden in public schools and abortion is accepted. This is contrary to what is stated in the article. Personally, I think the standard for morality is decided by society, much like the standard for beauty. Religion is society's way of institutionalizing that morality.
    Btw, my answers are forbidden, obligatory, and forbidden.

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