Elizabeth’s Journal

Moral Test, Flawed

I read about a research project at Harvard that claims to be exploring the basis for ethical judgments across different cultures in today’s Houston Chronicle. I went to the site and took the test, and I have the following observations:

—rather than taking about 10 minutes to take, I spent maybe five on the four questions offered, although I guess I might have spent another couple of minutes filling out the introductory data gathering
—if you go further into the site and visit the page that discusses their research in a little more detail, you will find that they have already arrived at a conclusion and are simply seeking data to support it. How unscientific is that? Particularly when they offer this only in English at the moment? For a “study” that purports to be cross-cultural, that’s a pretty big omission. And when I went to school, drawing a conclusion (they specifically state, “We believe this hyper rational, culturally-specific view is no longer tenable. The MST has been designed to show why and offer an alternative” before gathering one’s evidence was considered a no-no. Hard to believe this comes from such a reknowned institution as Harvard.
—finally, I thought the questions/situations were pretty obvious, whereas the Houston Chronicle said “there are some difficult decisions to make”—if anyone finds themselves in a dilemma as to any of the scenarios and which ones, I’m interested to hear about it