What we think and believe - and why

Think I'll pass...

Hmmmmm. I did the first one: 4.2 Harm, 3.5 Fairness, 3.0 Legality, 2.5 Authority and 0.8 Purity. Oh dear.

I tried a few of these questionnaires. Some of them don't work on an iPad. I didn't feel that the ones I did were about morality so much as about one's approach to life in a much more general way – the rightness or wrongness (or even if they could be said to be right or wrong) of certain choices seemed largely irrelevant.

Some, such as the one about appropriate punishments, I felt unable to complete. I think you need specific knowledge and training to judge stuff like that – i.e. what the likely range of punishments for specific offences is, and the circumstances of the offence.

I found the link from a review of a book called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Religion and Politics by Jonathan Haidt.

He says that everyone works on five basic moral receptors: those pertaining to caring, loyalty, authority and sanctity. These terms vary. Purity replaces sanctity on on the website I flagged.

It's a fascinating text and it helps us all to understand why decent people persist in holding - to many - irrational views.

The site is fascinating in that it allows us to see how we score in comparisons with liberals and conservatives. It's worth having a go, it's ongoing (respectable)research and whilst it's not going to change anyone's views, it's instructive to see how one compares with others who have taken part. The stats are given and the researchers are mainly attached to the University of Virginia. A kosher institution!

Very American though, and what is 'liberal' in America is relatively conservative here by and large.

Very true, and some of the surveys are flagged for USA citizens only. But I still think it's worth a look. And the book is fascinating.

I might check the book out sometime.

Not sure about the punishment one. There's only three choices - fine, imprisonment or death penalty - there's no suspended sentence, community service, restorative justice. If the idea is to concentrate the mind by forcing a choice closest to what one believes, I can't see how that can give an accurate assessment of what a person's values are, but perhaps I'm missing the point.

Unless it changed further on - I just gave up after a few questions.

Same here.