Ethical Universe

Ethical Index, quick quiz

I added this page to the website a month or so ago because I believed people in general enjoy taking graded tests that reveal something about themselves; I have also had marketing experts tell me the same thing.

So, I have now decided to expand this feature and also make it a post by itself to draw more attention to it. The quiz was not originally designed to be a parlor game, but the thought occurred to me that it can be used this way. In a sense, the quiz can be used as a fun game but with a somewhat serious purpose – the purpose being expanding one’s self knowledge. Similar to card games, it can be played by one person or many. When ‘played’ alone (as in the game Solitaire), the quiz is simply a tool allowing a person to evaluate their own basic character structure. As in many games, there are really no right or wrong answers, it is just a measurement of one’s own character traits compared to a universal standard – the results, however, are only as good as the degree of honesty that goes into the self evaluation.

I believe that any activity that improves our self awareness is worthwhile, however, when ‘played’ by two or more people, the added excitement and benefit expands to include group dynamics – after all, poker is far more exciting and interesting than Solitaire! When ‘played’ as a group, the participants must know each other pretty well. In this case, each person in turn evaluates themselves, but the rest of the group is asked to evaluate the person also.

The winners are the ones whose self evaluation most closely matches the average of the rest of the group’s evaluation of you. Of course, if the evaluation shows one to be a narcissistic ass and everyone else agrees, the victory will be a shallow one indeed. But, of course, psychopaths and/or sociopaths aren’t likely to be playing this game anyway, unless they are playing it with their psychiatrist, that is. But, seriously, I do believe this quiz could be a good therapeutic tool for a mental health worker. It could be a good way of showing the analyst where the patients think they are at ethically. Later the tool could be used by the analyst and the patient to graphically show progress or demonstrate different perspectives from each.

The existing Ethical Quick Quiz page is included below (between the asterisks) for the reader’s convenience and to facilitate further discussion. The page will be expanded in the future to include all or part of what follows.

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Ethical Index, Quick Quiz Purpose: This quiz is not intended to be a rigorous psychological profile. It is simply a quick assessment of one’s predominant character structure that is meant to be amusing and instructive for one or a whole group of people. However, the indicated results are only as good as the honesty and accuracy that goes into the answer to six questions.

Procedure – Note: it may be useful to simply read through the whole procedure prior to actually starting the evaluation.

EVALUATION PART 1 – (MAGNITUDE)

Step 1: assign a number from 0.0 to 100.0 to the questions listed below labeled A through F. If the statement is NEVER TRUE AT ALL, you should assign a value of 0.0. If the answer is ALWAYS TRUE TO A LARGE EXTENT, you should assign a maximum amount of 100.0. Most people will be somewhere in between, neither completely devoid of the trait or completely dominated by it.

Quiz:

Ego – the assigned numbers can vary from complete narcissism (self infatuation, actually a false love) for A (=100) to herd-animal (completely dependent on others, ego decimated) for B (=100).

A – I love myself

B – I have brotherly-love for mankind (in general, not just my lover).

Id – assigned numbers can vary from blood-thirsty (completely ruthless) for C (=100) to suicidal (completely self-destructive) for D (=100).

C – I am externally aggressive and competitive with others

D – I am self-critical

Superego – numbers can vary from a literal (complete acceptance of external moral authority, nothing is relative!) for E (=100) to a complete cynic (complete rejection of external moral authority, all things are relative) for F (=100).

E – I have faith in the rightness of external moral authorities (e.g. Church, parental dictates, societal norms)

F – I am morally self reliant and use reason to figure things out.

Step 2: plug the assigned numbers into the calculation formula below.

Calculation:

Ethical Index = √ ((A-B)² + (C-D)² + (E-F)² )

So what we’re doing here, in plain language, is using the old Pythagorean Theorem for adding vectors by taking the square root of the sum of the difference between the 3 pairs of values squared for the ego, id and superego.

Step 3: Solve the equation to find your ethical index. Note: You’ll need a calculator that does squares and square roots unless you want to try it manually or find an online site that provides a calulator! The easiest way to solve the equation is to start with each of the 3 terms in the formula.

You will need to make a separate note for each term as to whether it is 0 for cases where both numbers are the same, a plus value for cases that the first number in the term is larger than the second number or a negative value for cases where the first number in the term is smaller than the second number – these values will be used in Part 2 of the evaluation to determine the direction of the resultant vector. After the individual terms are assigned (and of course subtracted and then squared), the 3 remaining numbers should be added together. Then, you simply take the square root of the sum you just came up with.

Step 4: Evaluate the results. The index value should be a number from 0 to 100.0. If your answer is greater than 100.0, you either miscalculated or assigned numbered that are too large to begin with. For example, if you assign a value of 100.0 for a maximum amount of external aggression (blood-thirsty) and also a value of 100.0 to love of others (herd-animal), this is obviously unrealistic and results in an index value greater than 100.0. One must keep in mind that the assigned numbers represent the amount of psychic energy required to maintain an ethical position and we cannot have more than 100% of our available energy being used.

Also remember that if both numbers in a pair are very high, even though they cancel each other, it could indicate a high degree of internal conflict going on in the personality – some is fine but a lot would not necessarily be healthy.

Nevertheless, in general, the closer to zero the index number is, the ethically healthier you are. If you are tempted to assign the number zero to all of the input values, remember that the result is only as good as the honesty that goes into the calculation. If in doubt about the veracity of the outcome, it might be helpful to have someone else that you trust intimately do the assignments – you just must agree in advance not to take offense at other people’s opinion of you. We definitely do not want to break up any unions over this! Or start World War III. So, try to be as philosophical as you can here – don’t take the quiz too seriously; just have fun with it!

Final note – Please give us your feedback by leaving a comment or emailing your results privately. As always, visitor privacy and integrity is our utmost concern – no personal data will ever be made public or misused in any way. Your feedback will only be used to make improvements to the quiz. Thank you.

John W. McAlister, Email: johnmcalister43@yahoo.com ****************************************************************

EVALUATION PART 2 – (DIRECTION)

The first thing I want to point out is that Part 1 of the evaluation only allows for the calculation of the magnitude of the resultant ethical vector. This in itself is useful information, but, it doesn’t give the user a clue as to the direction of the vector. In other words it doesn’t even attempt to demonstrate the difference between extreme Pride and extreme Envy, for example. So, to more fully round out the evaluation, the following technique of determining the direction of the resultant vector can be considered Part 2 of the evaluation. When we look closer at the formula, it is readily seen that it contains 3 terms (A-B), (C-D) and (E -F); these terms stand for the ethical value assigned for the ego, Id and Superego respectively. The first term is the subtraction of the value assigned B from the value assigned to A. If B is equal to A, the result is zero which has no sign and when zero is squared, we still have zero; if A is larger than B, the result will be a positive (+) value; if B is larger than A, the result will be a negative (-) value, but when squared it becomes a positive value. The same is true for the other two terms as well, (C-D) and (E-F). Let us take the most common case first which is when the 3 terms all have a value other than zero. The following chart shows the 8 possible combinations:

(A-B) (C-D) (E-F)            Resultant vector points towards

+ + +                                              PRIDE

+ + -                                                GREED

+ – +                                               HYPOCRISY

+ – -                                                ENVY

- + +                                               FASCISM

- + -                                               LUST

- – -                                                SLOTH

- – +                                               CONFORMITY

The words in the resultant column are what we call the 3rd degree extreme ethical positions. This means that they are not necessarily life threatening but quite serious ethical breeches nonetheless. It should also be noted that the resultant list contains 5 of the so-called 7 Deadly Sins. Now, just because the resultant vector is pointing toward one of these positions, it may not be a serious transgression. For example, if the vector is pointing toward greed, but, the Ethical Index value from the formula is, say, 30, this says that one is 30% extreme in the direction of Greed. However, it also says that the individual is 70% productive! Not too bad. I could live with that score myself. The person probably has some ethical issues to work on, but generally has a healthy outlook on life.

The second most common case is what we call 2nd degree extremes. This means that when one is completely extreme in these directions, the situation can definitely be life threatening and therefore far more dangerous than a 3rd degree extreme position. An example of this kind of position is sadism. If a person is completely extreme in the direction of sadism, someone’s life or well-being could most definitely be at risk. There are 12 2nd degree extreme positions in the ethical universe; and they are listed in the following chart in no particular order.

(A-B) (C-D) (E-F)     Resultant vector points towards

0        +        +              Terrorist inciter

0        +        -               Illicit Purveyor (drug Lord etc.)

0         –        +             Soldier Ant (Blind-follower)

0         –        –              Gutter Rat (e.g. Gang-Banger)

+         0       +              The Chosen (privileged)

+        0       -                Compulsive Consumer (glutton)

-        0       –                 Gigolo (parasitic)

-        0      +                 Anal-Bureaucrat

+        +      0                Robber-Baron (ruthless capitalist)

+         -       0               Sadist

-         +      0                Commodity (selling oneself)

-         -        0               Masochist (loves punishment)

The most dangerous and/or life threatening, but thankfully the least common extreme ethical positions are what we call 1st degree extremes. These positions are where the individual is completely extreme in one dimension (ego, Id or Superego). When this occurs, all available psychic energy is used up in one dimension which leaves no energy for the other 2 dimensions. These individuals are basically missing 2/3’s of their humanity and are therefore very sick and extremely dangerous. An example is the blood-thirsty individual who is most probably a sociopathic killer or child-molester etc that has no remorse for their evil deeds. The following chart depicts these unfortunate cases. The user should keep in mind that if the resultant index value is quite small, even though it may be pointing in the direction of one of the 1st degree extremes, no one should be alarmed by this. For example, if someone is 20% of the way to being narcissistic, they are also 80% productive, not a bad place to be at all! So, again just have fun with this quiz!

(A-B) (C-D) (E-F)      Resultant vector points towards

+       0         0              Narcissistic

-       0         0               Herd-Animal

0      +         0               Blood-thirsty

0       -          0              Suicidal (self-destructive)

0       0        +               Literal (e.g., every word of God)

0       0         -               Perniciously Relative (cynical)

End of quiz, good luck, John McAlister

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In my experience with math problems, nothing aids understanding better than an example. So, in an effort to better explain the Ethical Quick Quiz, I will use myself as the guinea pig.

I hope this helps for those people that are unfamiliar with vector addition.

So first, I will assign a number from 0 to 100 for each of the 6 variables to begin the MAGNITUDE calculation:

A = 60  – I love myself quite a lot.

B = 50   – I love others a little bit less

C = 50   – I am assertive with other people (short of aggressive though)

D = 40  – I am somewhat self critical (less now than I used to be)

E = 50  – I am somewhat influenced by what others say about ethics/morals.

F = 30  – I usually rely on my own judgment to decide right from wrong.

So now, plugging these values into the formula factors for the Index value, we have:

(A-B) = (60-50) = +10

(C-D) = (50-40) = +10

(E-F) = (50-30) = +20

So now, we have Index = √ ((A-B)² + (C-D)² + (E-F)² )

which  becomes Index = √ ((+10)² + (+10)² + (+20)² )

So, Ethical Index = √ (100) + (100) + (400) )

which is now equal the square root of 600 = 24.5 ~ 25

So this says that I am approximately 25% of the way to being extreme. This ends the MAGNITUDE calculation. Now we must figure out which ethical extreme I am pointing toward:

Since the 3 terms are all non-zero, we have a 3rd degree extreme I am pointing at.

The 3 signs of the terms are +,+ and +.

Applying this to the chart shown above for 3rd degree extremes, we see that these values point to the 3rd degree extreme of PRIDE. So this tells me I am approx 25% of the way to being extremely prideful. I’m not thrilled with this outcome but I am not ashamed of it either. I have some work to do on my pride, but at the same time these results also say I’m 75% productive – so it would seem that I have quite a lot to work with. So, overall I’ll take that result and go forward trying to reduce my pride, but obviously with my head held high.

I hope this example helps some people that didn’t quite get the point to all this. Again, don’t take this quiz too seriously; it is definitely not the final word on your wonderful personality! Just have fun with it. Good Luck everyone. Let me know if there are any further questions on the application of this quiz. Thanks for reading.

NOTE: FOR THOSE READERS THAT WOULD LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE AND HELP THIS WORK CONTINUE OR SIMPLY BELIEVE THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS, PLEASE REFER TO THE BOOK, ETHICAL UNIVERSE, FOR A MORE THOROUGH EXPLANATION OF THE UNDERLINING FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE ABOVE CALCULATION.

John McAlister

Please address any questions to email:johnmcalister43@yahoo.com

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