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How Do You Decide What's Right?

Two questions sit underneath most moral arguments, and mixing them up is why those arguments go nowhere. One is what makes an act right — the kind of thing it is, or the way it turns out. The other is who counts, and how much: everybody equally, or the people you are actually tied to.

Twenty-four statements, about four minutes, and a point on a map. There is no scored answer here and no corner the quiz is steering you toward.

24 questions

Answered 0 of 24

  1. 1 A promise is a reason on its own, separate from what keeping it achieves.
  2. 2 A life saved far away is worth as much as one saved nearby.
  3. 3 Loyalty is a real obligation rather than a bias to be corrected.
  4. 4 Looking after your own before others is not a failing.
  5. 5 I would rather help where the need is greatest than where I have ties.
  6. 6 A rule worth having is worth keeping even when it costs something.
  7. 7 My obligations start with the people who would notice if I disappeared.
  8. 8 I try to give a stranger's interests the same weight as a friend's.
  9. 9 A community that puts itself first is doing what a community is for.
  10. 10 Good intentions do not count for much when the result is bad.
  11. 11 Refusing to get your hands dirty can itself be the wrong choice.
  12. 12 How a decision was made matters as much as what it produced.
  13. 13 I owe more to the people close to me than to people I will never meet.
  14. 14 Judging an act without looking at its effects is not judging it at all.
  15. 15 Where somebody was born should not change what they are owed.
  16. 16 I would rather be trusted to keep my word than trusted to get the best result.
  17. 17 Whether an act was right is settled by what kind of act it was.
  18. 18 Being born into a family or a country is luck rather than a claim on me.
  19. 19 The people I happen to know are not more important than anybody else.
  20. 20 Whether an act was right is settled by what it brought about.
  21. 21 The right choice is the one that leaves things better than the alternatives would.
  22. 22 I would take work that helped the place I am from over work that helped somewhere I have no connection to.
  23. 23 There are things I would not do even if doing them made everything turn out better.
  24. 24 A rule should be broken when keeping it leads to a worse result.