I got an ending, and I disagree with it entirely. I think I'm bouncing off of this project, but I want to give it another go and see if it can register something I would say is true about me.
I think I can identify where it goes wrong for me.
"Now, do you think that lies are wrong, right, or neutral because they mean something about who you are?"
Yes. That is a part of it. I would venture that is a large part of it.
"That they are wrong because they in some way move you further from who you should be [...]"
I, what? I don't... how do we... que? Did the car swerve while I was lost in thought?
This is where it flies off into parts incomprehensible for me. I picked the growth-focused answer 100% because I focus a lot on self-improvement (and I'm now very concerned that my phone's keyboard wanted to slam "Self-Immolation" in there when I haven't thought about that in, I dunno, ever? Much less typed it!). Being a better person moment-to-moment informs a lot of my thinking.
While at the hypothetical party, my gut answer is "I don't want to talk to James, either, and will find a means to avoid it. If it means stepping out for a bit, that's what I'd do." The next-best answer is to do something that might be good for James, since I cannot get what I personally want here.
Virtue ethics is a new concept to me (or a new name, maybe). The idea that I would imagine someone who I would admire and try to do what they would choose to do feels alien. It feels like sneaking a glimpse into a mind from another world.
This was a really fun idea! If you ever do it again, and it’s easy, could you add a comments section after each endpoint? I want to unpack whether I’m really comfortable as a SCAPUDE, but not in front of the regulars, that’d be weird.
I got CARTMAN, and I think it's because the game conflated two things that I see as very different:
* "When I do lie, it is usually for my own benefit" (true)
* "I frequently lie for my own benefit" (false).
The possibility that I just don't lie very much seems to have been overlooked.
What is actually the case is that I consider myself a consequentialist, think that in practice lying is rarely consequentially justified, and also really dislike lying; but I am morally imperfect and sometimes do lie for my own benefit anyway, even while knowing it is (probably) wrong.
Well, I scored GETSOMETHICKERSKINYOUCOWARD, but I suspect this is really just because you presumed people really could be categorized as consequentialists, virtue ethicists, or deontologists. Even if you think there are only those three flavors, a person could be less than 50% of each one - but I doubt those are even the only flavors worth considering. For example, what would Sun Tzu say? Probably:
* One should not lie to one's superiors.
* One should avoid lying to members of your group.
* One should never hesitate to deceive one's enemies.
Is Sun Tzu a Virtue Ethicist? Deontologist? A Consequentialist?
There's certainly some complexity in here that I didn't capture. Even if I had pushed for more categories and sub-categories, we'd still have to grapple with, say, a person who believes X very strongly but behaves in a Y way. But I couldn't capture everything and still write this - people write entire, thick novels on small nuances of single systems. A jackass writing some summary thing over a week isn't going to get close to that.
That said, what does an even 33% split into each look like?
> There's certainly some complexity in here that I didn't capture.
Ah! Isn't it always the way?
> That said, what does an even 33% split into each look like?
Not sure. All I know is that Kant, Bentham, and Aristotle, are all wrong.
The categorical imperative is violated by basic economics: "I will that all people shall earn money by working as gas station attendants as a universal moral law!"
Utilitarianism depends upon intuitions - intuitions which are repeatedly violated by actual utilitarian conclusions: "The morally best outcome eternally shackles humanity to beds where they are intravenously fed drugs to induce a state of boundless euphoria!"
And Aristotle is arbritrary.
Worse: no moral ethicist is able to cope with the challenge of nihilism. Rationalist circles are filled with atheists who see that common conceptions of God are unlikely and inconsistent and conclude God does not exist. Take the same people and show them common conceptions of morality, equally unlikely and inconsistent, and watch them conclude in favor of - no not nihilism. No no: utilitarianism.
But why *not* nihilism? An ethical theory that cannot soundly and convincingly cope with the challenge of moral nihilism - the idea that all outcomes are morally equal - is philosophically equivalent to theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. First demonstrate angels and pins exist and then maybe we can talk about dancing; demonstrate morality exists and then maybe we can talk about trolleys.
I have an article coming up that I think you will like. It hits on some of these same notes - I pitched it to someone who hasn't gotten back to me on it (they almost certainly don't want it) but I'm sitting on it for a week or so just in case, and to mentally "cook" it a little more for improvements.
I feel like right away I felt unfairly pigeonholed. Specifically, I was asked whether some things carry their wrongness with them AND whether lying is one of those things. I think some things do that but lying isn't one of them.
Minor heads-up that you have what looks like a copy/paste error on one of the choices (both options say 'of course I don't') Guess I can't include a screenshot, and I don't recall the path to it, but it's the "mentat" page.
CDH is correct. I actually made this really confusing (sorry) by having other ones that have a bit more meaning. Consistency is not a strong point of this game.
The first question is supposed to parse whether or not you think lying is wrong at the level of the action, even completely stripped of context. It's relevant because consequentialism mostly doesn't allow for that - in that system, an action is determined to be good or bad based on the consequences it causes, not because of what particular kind of action it is.
Bad writing aside, if you think that something like lying is bad *because it's a lie and it's wrong to lie", even if you later think it's worse because it also caused bad consequences, then you are going to answer "yes" to that question and I'm going to shove you off into deontology-related questions. If you think that a lie isn't inherently bad, and only becomes bad if it causes other bad things, then you would answer now and I'd shove you towards consequentialism.
I am SCAPUDE, or a scales-of-good pure deontologist, according to this. In reality, my brain is more of a collection of modules, each representing different somewhat self-consistent points of view. The modules compete against each other to see which one is most appropriate to a given situation. So I kind of had to pick a module (or at least a starting module) and go with it for the quiz. On my second go-round (where I got stuck) I was getting classified as a consequentialist. What's funny is I think I might really be a virtue ethicist. I don't know. Morality is confusing.
Yeah, no kidding. Writing this there were several times where something was squint-your-eyes appropriate to a few different placements; in the end it was just "screw it, it has to go SOMEWHERE."
On my second go-round, I ran into 'There is no page named "conpsychic"' on the page that starts, "OK, thanks for bearing with me. We are now properly and fully on the consequentialist track." (In other words, one of the links didn't exist and couldn't be chosen.)
I'll take a look! If I'm being super honest I don't know when I'll get to the next time I do something like this - it was a TON of work, so it depends an awful lot on how much people like it/don't like it.
Makes sense! What aspect of the design/build was the biggest effort-vacuum?
I liked it, only suggestion is more of a "now what" at the conclusion - am I looking for ways to change my behaviour, to make better decisions based on my profile?
Honestly, mostly just that I suck at things. The editor is fairly simple markdown stuff, but I'm not good actually getting thigns to work so I still had a lot of trouble with it. Beyond that, it's just a lot of text; it doesn't necessarily look like it, but this sucker is LONG.
So I just kept mental track of everything, which ended up being a mistake - if it was any bigger, I couldn't have done it at all, and I didn't do a good job overall at keeping track of it anyway.
Pen and paper is usually a bad idea for me, because I can't really read my own handwriting that well - I grew up on keyboards, which means my handwriting never really progressed past a certain point. If I had to do this again I might use something like you linked, particularly if it's good at flowcharting.
No worries about the questions - you can def keep them coming if you have more. Glad to have them.
Cool quiz! I have a group chat where I send my friends obscure personality quizzes when I get the chance, and this went to the chat after the very first page. The most common critique was that the quiz too often seems to equate "believing there are some actions which are always wrong" with "believing lying is always wrong," particularly on the first page.
Also, "THISGOTHEAVY" has a typo for Sikh.
I am GETSOMETHICKERSKINYOUCOWARD. One of my friends is CONCAVE. A second got either CARTMAN or THISGOTHEAVY. The third also got THISGOTHEAVY. (I might update later if more of my friends wake up and take it)
This is great! You're writing is delightful, I'm having a lot of fun going through all the paths now that I've found my One True Category (REALITYSVIRTUAL). Will definitely share with friends.
Just to push back on this a bit, I think you could replace "inherently bad" and "still bad but" with any adjective and it wouldn't change your philosophy. Like nothing would change if lying was inherently "inherenly blue" and you'd still lie to get a good outcome, even though at the time lying seemed "blue." If the consequences are preventing something horrible, then lying is still blue but morally permissible.
It seems to me that in both cases--"bad" and "blue"--the actor is just lying (or not lying) to achieve a morally utilitarian result, regardless of anything inherent in the act. Whether lying is inherently bad or good or blue or green (or even all at the same time) doesn't really change the moral calculus. Results being equal, "I did a bunch of blue things" is not different from "I did a bunch of bad things."
EDIT: Have thought about this a little more and I don't think I made as much sense as I thought I did. Will think about this some more....
Lying being mildly bad would definitely change a bunch of small things at the margins. Lying vs. holocausted neighbours is not a small margin.
"James the Worst" could be handled with frankness, though that'd endure much more discomfort for the honest person than a white lie.
But even beside that, there's an army of small decisions where one can steer towards truth and frankness or white lies. And within that truth, there's skillful delivery and being horribly blunt.
I think there is some space between "is inherently wrong" and "would not do it" that is hard to get to using this choose-your-own adventure ethics model. For instance, I am open to the possibility that, in this scenario, if I lied, it could be the right thing to do but also viewed as sin by the power that be and punished accordingly.
I got an ending, and I disagree with it entirely. I think I'm bouncing off of this project, but I want to give it another go and see if it can register something I would say is true about me.
I think I can identify where it goes wrong for me.
"Now, do you think that lies are wrong, right, or neutral because they mean something about who you are?"
Yes. That is a part of it. I would venture that is a large part of it.
"That they are wrong because they in some way move you further from who you should be [...]"
I, what? I don't... how do we... que? Did the car swerve while I was lost in thought?
This is where it flies off into parts incomprehensible for me. I picked the growth-focused answer 100% because I focus a lot on self-improvement (and I'm now very concerned that my phone's keyboard wanted to slam "Self-Immolation" in there when I haven't thought about that in, I dunno, ever? Much less typed it!). Being a better person moment-to-moment informs a lot of my thinking.
While at the hypothetical party, my gut answer is "I don't want to talk to James, either, and will find a means to avoid it. If it means stepping out for a bit, that's what I'd do." The next-best answer is to do something that might be good for James, since I cannot get what I personally want here.
Virtue ethics is a new concept to me (or a new name, maybe). The idea that I would imagine someone who I would admire and try to do what they would choose to do feels alien. It feels like sneaking a glimpse into a mind from another world.
(Concave)
This was a really fun idea! If you ever do it again, and it’s easy, could you add a comments section after each endpoint? I want to unpack whether I’m really comfortable as a SCAPUDE, but not in front of the regulars, that’d be weird.
I got CARTMAN, and I think it's because the game conflated two things that I see as very different:
* "When I do lie, it is usually for my own benefit" (true)
* "I frequently lie for my own benefit" (false).
The possibility that I just don't lie very much seems to have been overlooked.
What is actually the case is that I consider myself a consequentialist, think that in practice lying is rarely consequentially justified, and also really dislike lying; but I am morally imperfect and sometimes do lie for my own benefit anyway, even while knowing it is (probably) wrong.
Well, I scored GETSOMETHICKERSKINYOUCOWARD, but I suspect this is really just because you presumed people really could be categorized as consequentialists, virtue ethicists, or deontologists. Even if you think there are only those three flavors, a person could be less than 50% of each one - but I doubt those are even the only flavors worth considering. For example, what would Sun Tzu say? Probably:
* One should not lie to one's superiors.
* One should avoid lying to members of your group.
* One should never hesitate to deceive one's enemies.
Is Sun Tzu a Virtue Ethicist? Deontologist? A Consequentialist?
There's certainly some complexity in here that I didn't capture. Even if I had pushed for more categories and sub-categories, we'd still have to grapple with, say, a person who believes X very strongly but behaves in a Y way. But I couldn't capture everything and still write this - people write entire, thick novels on small nuances of single systems. A jackass writing some summary thing over a week isn't going to get close to that.
That said, what does an even 33% split into each look like?
> There's certainly some complexity in here that I didn't capture.
Ah! Isn't it always the way?
> That said, what does an even 33% split into each look like?
Not sure. All I know is that Kant, Bentham, and Aristotle, are all wrong.
The categorical imperative is violated by basic economics: "I will that all people shall earn money by working as gas station attendants as a universal moral law!"
Utilitarianism depends upon intuitions - intuitions which are repeatedly violated by actual utilitarian conclusions: "The morally best outcome eternally shackles humanity to beds where they are intravenously fed drugs to induce a state of boundless euphoria!"
And Aristotle is arbritrary.
Worse: no moral ethicist is able to cope with the challenge of nihilism. Rationalist circles are filled with atheists who see that common conceptions of God are unlikely and inconsistent and conclude God does not exist. Take the same people and show them common conceptions of morality, equally unlikely and inconsistent, and watch them conclude in favor of - no not nihilism. No no: utilitarianism.
But why *not* nihilism? An ethical theory that cannot soundly and convincingly cope with the challenge of moral nihilism - the idea that all outcomes are morally equal - is philosophically equivalent to theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. First demonstrate angels and pins exist and then maybe we can talk about dancing; demonstrate morality exists and then maybe we can talk about trolleys.
I have an article coming up that I think you will like. It hits on some of these same notes - I pitched it to someone who hasn't gotten back to me on it (they almost certainly don't want it) but I'm sitting on it for a week or so just in case, and to mentally "cook" it a little more for improvements.
I feel like right away I felt unfairly pigeonholed. Specifically, I was asked whether some things carry their wrongness with them AND whether lying is one of those things. I think some things do that but lying isn't one of them.
Minor heads-up that you have what looks like a copy/paste error on one of the choices (both options say 'of course I don't') Guess I can't include a screenshot, and I don't recall the path to it, but it's the "mentat" page.
I fixed this, then totally forgot to thank you for pointing it out. Thank you for pointing it out!
I am very bad at remembering how moral systems are defined, so I appreciate this. I got:
"You are a scales-of-good pure deontologist.
Your funny coded category name is SCAPUDE."
What is up with the category names? Am I missing some type of philosophy in-joke?
I think it is just a kind-of acronym. SCAles-of-good PUre DEontologist.
CDH is correct. I actually made this really confusing (sorry) by having other ones that have a bit more meaning. Consistency is not a strong point of this game.
Probably my stupidity, but I don't understand the first choice:
"No, I don't think morality works off an abstract list like that.
Yes, that's how morality works; some wrong things carry their wrongness with them."
It's very likely just the writing being bad.
The first question is supposed to parse whether or not you think lying is wrong at the level of the action, even completely stripped of context. It's relevant because consequentialism mostly doesn't allow for that - in that system, an action is determined to be good or bad based on the consequences it causes, not because of what particular kind of action it is.
Bad writing aside, if you think that something like lying is bad *because it's a lie and it's wrong to lie", even if you later think it's worse because it also caused bad consequences, then you are going to answer "yes" to that question and I'm going to shove you off into deontology-related questions. If you think that a lie isn't inherently bad, and only becomes bad if it causes other bad things, then you would answer now and I'd shove you towards consequentialism.
Perfect, thanks! I'm a utilitarian, so the choice is easy.
I am SCAPUDE, or a scales-of-good pure deontologist, according to this. In reality, my brain is more of a collection of modules, each representing different somewhat self-consistent points of view. The modules compete against each other to see which one is most appropriate to a given situation. So I kind of had to pick a module (or at least a starting module) and go with it for the quiz. On my second go-round (where I got stuck) I was getting classified as a consequentialist. What's funny is I think I might really be a virtue ethicist. I don't know. Morality is confusing.
Yeah, no kidding. Writing this there were several times where something was squint-your-eyes appropriate to a few different placements; in the end it was just "screw it, it has to go SOMEWHERE."
Yeah. I got IMANLABS, but only after extremely reluctantly clicking on "It's still lying, but not really wrong at that point, or something"
My second go-round got DEFERENTSTROKES. (Cute.)
On my second go-round, I ran into 'There is no page named "conpsychic"' on the page that starts, "OK, thanks for bearing with me. We are now properly and fully on the consequentialist track." (In other words, one of the links didn't exist and couldn't be chosen.)
Fixed! Thank you!
I assumed this was an intentional joke lol
Ha, no, I wish. I'm just not great at things.
I find Coda.io perfect for this type of experiment. Super easy to setup and makes the process visual and engaging through button-actions.
Happy to chat about its potential if you like. I'm currently building a game to demonstrate a work/self management app.
I'll take a look! If I'm being super honest I don't know when I'll get to the next time I do something like this - it was a TON of work, so it depends an awful lot on how much people like it/don't like it.
Makes sense! What aspect of the design/build was the biggest effort-vacuum?
I liked it, only suggestion is more of a "now what" at the conclusion - am I looking for ways to change my behaviour, to make better decisions based on my profile?
Honestly, mostly just that I suck at things. The editor is fairly simple markdown stuff, but I'm not good actually getting thigns to work so I still had a lot of trouble with it. Beyond that, it's just a lot of text; it doesn't necessarily look like it, but this sucker is LONG.
I swear I'll stop asking questions (just curious), but did you build a map to plan out the different pathways? and if so, pen-and-paper, or...?
So I just kept mental track of everything, which ended up being a mistake - if it was any bigger, I couldn't have done it at all, and I didn't do a good job overall at keeping track of it anyway.
Pen and paper is usually a bad idea for me, because I can't really read my own handwriting that well - I grew up on keyboards, which means my handwriting never really progressed past a certain point. If I had to do this again I might use something like you linked, particularly if it's good at flowcharting.
No worries about the questions - you can def keep them coming if you have more. Glad to have them.
I'm the same - digital all the way. Miro's nice for this kind of thing.
After chatting with you, I created a Choose Your Own Adventure builder in @coda_hq.
Check it out: https://youtu.be/RFa7f4C_tKI
Looks like you have a broken link here: https://writing.residentcontrarian.com/game/#page=pbagenpx9&state=%7B%22ergevrirq_gur_png_rlr_tynffrf%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22fjrrcrq_hc_gur_unyyjnl%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22erfphrq_gur_serfuzna%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22erghearq_gur_png_rlr_tynffrf%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22haybpxrq_lbhe_ybpxre%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22ybpxre_haybpx_nggrzcgf%22%3A5%2C%22unaqrq_va_lbhe_ratyvfu_ubzrjbex%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22ivfvgf_gb_yvoenel%22%3A5%2C%22fnirf%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22pneelvat%22%3A%7B%22rlrtynffrf_pnfr%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22png_rlr_tynffrf%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22ohpxrg%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22oebbz%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22ubzrjbex%22%3Asnyfr%2C%22obbx%22%3Asnyfr%7D%7D
I got it fixed! Guess who erratically capitalizes file names in case sensitive systems. It's me, apparently!
Glad I could help
Cool quiz! I have a group chat where I send my friends obscure personality quizzes when I get the chance, and this went to the chat after the very first page. The most common critique was that the quiz too often seems to equate "believing there are some actions which are always wrong" with "believing lying is always wrong," particularly on the first page.
Also, "THISGOTHEAVY" has a typo for Sikh.
I am GETSOMETHICKERSKINYOUCOWARD. One of my friends is CONCAVE. A second got either CARTMAN or THISGOTHEAVY. The third also got THISGOTHEAVY. (I might update later if more of my friends wake up and take it)
Glad you guys got some use out of it! I'll take a look at the phrasing - in most places, you are right that it should only be talking about lying.
This is great! You're writing is delightful, I'm having a lot of fun going through all the paths now that I've found my One True Category (REALITYSVIRTUAL). Will definitely share with friends.
Glad you liked it!
Yeah! So cool!
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I guess my follow-up question would be: Why is it *ever* bad? is that consequences too, or something different?
Just to push back on this a bit, I think you could replace "inherently bad" and "still bad but" with any adjective and it wouldn't change your philosophy. Like nothing would change if lying was inherently "inherenly blue" and you'd still lie to get a good outcome, even though at the time lying seemed "blue." If the consequences are preventing something horrible, then lying is still blue but morally permissible.
It seems to me that in both cases--"bad" and "blue"--the actor is just lying (or not lying) to achieve a morally utilitarian result, regardless of anything inherent in the act. Whether lying is inherently bad or good or blue or green (or even all at the same time) doesn't really change the moral calculus. Results being equal, "I did a bunch of blue things" is not different from "I did a bunch of bad things."
EDIT: Have thought about this a little more and I don't think I made as much sense as I thought I did. Will think about this some more....
Lying being mildly bad would definitely change a bunch of small things at the margins. Lying vs. holocausted neighbours is not a small margin.
"James the Worst" could be handled with frankness, though that'd endure much more discomfort for the honest person than a white lie.
But even beside that, there's an army of small decisions where one can steer towards truth and frankness or white lies. And within that truth, there's skillful delivery and being horribly blunt.
Ah. Are you saying that the inherent badness goes on one side of the scale and consequence goes on the other? (perhaps in addition to other things)
I think there is some space between "is inherently wrong" and "would not do it" that is hard to get to using this choose-your-own adventure ethics model. For instance, I am open to the possibility that, in this scenario, if I lied, it could be the right thing to do but also viewed as sin by the power that be and punished accordingly.