Before you begin

1. If you believe there is nothing wrong about an action, or it is morally permissible, select right. Only select neutral if you are genuinely unsure between competing values.
2. Select based on what you think is right or wrong, which may or may not be what you would actually do.
3. Try to answer on your first instinct.

Click a circle for each scenario; further from center means a stronger rating.

The Nine Frameworks

Methodology

Each of the 40 scenarios has a mapped-out position for all nine frameworks — what a committed utilitarian, a strict Kantian, and so on would actually say about that case. Your rating is compared against all nine at once; the closer you land to a framework's position, the higher its match score.

For instance, a utilitarian believes the organ transplant killing one to save five is the right action, since it produces the greatest net benefit — while rule utilitarians, Kantians, and libertarians all object, each for a different reason: rule utilitarians worry about what happens if this became a general practice, Kantians object to using a person merely as a means, and libertarians see it as a straightforward violation of the one person's right not to be killed. If your answer lands closest to "strongly wrong," you'll match more closely with those three; if it lands closest to "strongly right," you'll match more closely with utilitarianism.

Many scenarios come in matched pairs that hold every variable constant except one — the same trolley dilemma with a switch versus direct physical force, the bombing of civilians as an unintended side effect versus a means to achieve an end. A single answer can be explained by coincidence, but a consistent pattern across a pair — where you stay the same, or where you flip — is what actually reveals which variable your judgment is tracking.

Not every framework has a position on every scenario. Care ethics, for example, is built around real, particular relationships, so it has little to say about abstract policy questions. Where a framework has no determinate position, that scenario simply doesn't count toward its score.

This quiz is a measure of revealed moral reasoning, but it is not a measure of which theory is correct, nor a diagnosis of your character.

Ready to see your results?

You can still go back and review or change any answer before finishing.