Okay…this test is flawed and here is why.
It dings me on this one
It’s the serial killer question…
The serial killer feels justified in killing in the name of God.
Clearly, someone who thinks God is directly talking to them and directing them to kill prostitutes has a mental disorder and cannot be held fully accountable for his/her actions.
Without knowing how they responded to your answers, I can't defend what he said. If you could copy what it responded with and post it on here that would be very helpful.
However, I might be able to put points against what you said here. Before saying anything, remember that philosophy is not like science. Science (very very generally put) deals with a certain type of philosophical possibilities. Namely, nomological possibilities. Philosophy allows us to ask questions of metaphysical and logical possibilities. Nomological possibilities talk about those possibilities allowed by all the rules and laws of nature in the world that we live in. Now, this leads me to ask you this:
Can you prove that a person who is killing people because supposedly God told him to has a mental disorder? This kind of question deals with conceiving or metaphysical possibilities. It does not seem to me that a person killing because God told him to and the concept of mental disease in any way necessitate each other. In other words, I can easily conceive of a person who is killing because God told him to, and the man does not have any mental disease.
Further, the test has nothing to do with whether or not the person in question is morally culpable. The question is getting at the fundamental nature of beliefs. Essentially playing with what you may have heard before, true, justified, and belief. This references talks about knowledge, but that's not the direct question here.
The question simply asks is the person justified in believing what he believes, not if he is correct in the belief.
The fact that it dings me while it doesn’t take mental illness into account made me kind roll my eyes and just flub through it after that….sorry.
It’s a cool test but it makes too many assumptions about what the person believes.
Most people would agree that it's very likely such a person would indeed have a mental illness. That's just not what's in question.
You claim that the test makes assumptions about the person, but I honestly disagree. If you could put forward some example, that would be helpful because right now we are just butting intuitions. A lot of people like to impose their own psychological assumptions of what they expect the question to be asking (or of what is to be expected) if they are not use to the kind of questioning that philosophy does.
My beliefs are much more complex than this test gives a person credit for….there is no way to explain to the test, why you are justified.
And you are correct. When I took the test I came out with two bite the bullets, and one of them I was able to successfully refute (I discussed it with a friend who is very good at philosophy, and she agreed with me). If you wish to refute some of the claims they make, that's awesome and I encourage any such debate. If you wish to post your refutes, I'd love to hear them.