Philosophical Health Check

 

Philosophical Health Check - Analysis 1

The PHC has identified 4 tensions in your beliefs.

 

The Philosophical Health Check is designed to identify tensions or contradictions (a Tension Quotient) between various beliefs that you hold. The PHC does not aim to identify which of your beliefs are true or false, but where the beliefs you hold might not be compatible with each other.

 

The test identifies a pair of beliefs as being in tension, where (a) there is a direct contradiction between them, or (b) some sophisticated reasoning is required to allow both beliefs to be held consistently. If two of your beliefs are in tension, we advise that either giving one of them up, or developing some rationally coherent way of reconciling them (assuming you have not already done so).

 

It may help to think of the idea of 'tension' in terms of an intellectual balancing act. Where there is little or no tension between two beliefs, no particular intellectual effort is required to balance them. But where there is a lot of tension, either one has to "jump off the highwire" by abandoning one belief; keep one's balance by intellectual effort and dexterity; or else "fall off the highwire" by failing to deal with the tension.

 

You should note this test only detects tensions between pre-selected pairs of beliefs - it does not detect all the possible tensions between all permutations of beliefs. So there may well be additional tensions between beliefs you hold which are not detected by this test.

 

 

The chart above shows your "tension quotient" score and also the average tension quotient score across all the people who have completed this test (where lower is better). The next page of analysis will detail the particular tensions in your beliefs identified by the PHC.

Philosophical Health Check - Analysis 2

The Philosophical Health Test has identified the following tension(s) in your beliefs:

 

 

Statements 5 and 29: Can you put a price on a human life?

 

26% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

 

You agreed that:

The right to life is so fundamental that financial considerations are irrelevant in any effort to save lives

But disagreed that:

Governments should be allowed to increase taxes sharply to save lives in the developing world

 

If the right to life is so fundamental that financial considerations are irrelevant when it comes to making decisions about saving human lives, then that must mean that we should always spend as much money as possible to save lives. If it costs £4 million to save a cancer patient's life, that money should be spent, period. But if this is true, then surely the West should spend as much money as possible saving lives in the developing world. You may already give $100 dollars a month to save lives in the developing world. But if financial onsiderations are irrelevant when it comes to saving lives, why not $200, or $1000, or just as much as you can afford? If you do not do so, you are implicitly endorsing the principle that individuals and governments are not obliged to save lives at all financial cost - that one can spend 'enough' on saving lives even though spending more, which one could afford to do, would save more lives. This suggests that financial considerations are relevant when it comes to making decisions about saving lives - there is a limit to how much one should spend to save a life.

 

 

Statements 10 and 23: Is there an all-good, all-powerful God?

 

30% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

 

You agreed that:

There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God

And also that:

To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

 

These two beliefs together generate what is known as 'The Problem of Evil'. The problem is simple: if God is all-powerful, loving and good, that means he can do what he wants and will do what is morally right. But surely this means that he would not allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly, as he could easily prevent it. Yet he does. Much infant suffering is the result of human action, but much is also due to natural causes, such as disease, flood or famine. In both cases, God could stop it, yet he does not.

 

Attempts to explain this apparent contradiction are known as 'theodicies' and many have been produced. Most conclude that God allows suffering to help us grow spiritually and/or to allow the greater good of human freedom. Whether these theodicies are adequate is the subject of continuing debate.

 

 

Statements 17 and 28: Are there any absolute truths?

 

37% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

 

You agreed that:

There are no objective truths about matters of fact; 'truth' is always relative to particular cultures and individuals

And also that:

The holocaust is an historical reality, taking place more or less as the history books report

 

If truth is relative then nothing is straightforwardly 'true' or 'factual'. Everything is 'true for someone' or 'a fact for them'. What then, of the holocaust? Is it true that millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other 'enemies' of the Third Reich were systematically executed by the Nazis? If you believe that there are no objective truths, you have to say that there is no straight answer to this question. For some people, the holocaust is a fact, for others, it is not. So what can you say to those who deny it is a fact? Are they not as entitled to their view as you are to yours? How can one both assert the reality of the holocaust and deny that there is a single truth about it? Resolving this intellectual tension is a real challenge.

 

 

Statements 24 and 3: How much must I protect the environment?

 

57% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

 

You agreed that:

The environment should not be damaged unnecessarily in the pursuit of human ends

But disagreed that:

People should not journey by car if they can walk, cycle or take a train instead

 

As walking, cycling and taking the train are all less environmentally damaging than driving a car for the same journey, if you choose to drive when you could have used another mode of transport, you are guilty of unnecessarily damaging the environment.

 

The problem here is the word 'unnecessary'. Very few things are necessary, if by necessary it is meant essential to survival. But you might want to argue that much of your use of cars or aeroplanes is necessary, not for survival, but for a certain quality of life. The difficulty is that the consequence of this response is that it then becomes hard to be critical of others, for it seems that 'necessary' simply means what one judges to be important for oneself. A single plane journey may add more pollutants to the atmosphere than a year's use of a high-emission vehicle. Who is guilty of causing unnecessary environmental harm here?