Ethical ideology (EPQ)

How you decide what is right — your ethical ideology, from Forsyth's research-validated taxonomy that crosses two dimensions: how strongly you hold that the right action must always avoid harming others (idealism), and how far you reject universal moral rules in favour of judging each situation on its own (relativism).

Forsyth's taxonomy of ethical ideologies (1980), measured by the Ethics Position Questionnaire, is a validated and widely used model in moral psychology. It scores two independent dimensions — idealism (the belief that the right action can always avoid harm to others) and relativism (the rejection of universal moral absolutes in favour of weighing each situation) — and crossing high and low on each yields four positions: situationism, absolutism, subjectivism and exceptionism. A reflective self-ID describing how you reason about right and wrong, not a measure of how moral you are. (Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ; Forsyth, 1980))

Groups

Situationist — High idealism, high relativism — you reject fixed moral rules and judge each act in its own context, but still aim for the choice that best protects everyone involved.
Absolutist — High idealism, low relativism — you believe acting on universal moral rules is what produces the best, least harmful outcome, so the right principle should hold in every case.
Subjectivist — Low idealism, high relativism — you base right and wrong on your own values and read of the situation rather than on universal principles, accepting that some harm may be unavoidable.
Exceptionist — Low idealism, low relativism — you treat moral rules as a guide but stay pragmatic, weighing costs and benefits and allowing exceptions when breaking a rule leads to a better result.

Ethical ideology (EPQ)

Groups

References

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