Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) Test

People who want to examine the principles behind their moral choices can use the Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) Test as a structured self-report exercise. This ethical position questionnaire is intended for readers reflecting on whether they rely on universal rules, situational judgment, or expected outcomes. The result describes two related tendencies, helping you notice the reasoning style that may shape difficult decisions.

What This Assessment Explores

Through judgments about harm, dignity, risk, lying, sacrifice, and competing outcomes, the questionnaire examines moral beliefs. It suits readers considering universal rules, situational flexibility, or confidence that right action should produce good results.

The result is organized into two scales:

• Relativism (10-50) measures reliance on situational factors rather than universal moral laws; Low (Universalist) 10-26, Moderate 27-40, and High (Relativist) 41-50 mark increasing situational emphasis.
• Idealism (10-50) measures belief that morally right actions always lead to desirable outcomes; Low idealism 10-26, Moderate idealism 27-40, and High idealism 41-50 are the displayed bands; at the low end, a person may see actions as bringing both benefits and harms and reject judging morality solely by outcomes.

Together, the scales describe an ethical orientation, not character. The profile highlights principles a respondent tends to emphasize when duties conflict or harm is possible.

Methodology and Evidence Base

Each statement uses a five-point agreement format from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. The items address avoiding harm, protecting dignity, absolute rules, situational morality, and whether consequences can justify an action. The online form reports two scale results, but its precise item-to-scale allocation and calculation are not stated.

The structure is conceptually consistent with the Ethics Position Questionnaire (Forsyth, 1980), which distinguishes idealism from relativism as broad ethical positions. O'Boyle and Forsyth (2021) later revisited the construct in the EPQ-5, a five-factor revision. That study provides context for the model's development, but this online form retains the two-domain format rather than the five-factor EPQ-5.

Answers are most useful when they reflect typical convictions rather than an attempt to appear exceptionally principled; interpreted as an ethical ideology test, the questionnaire shows how respondents prioritize moral principles. The displayed bands provide the categories used to interpret each scale. Self-report results can shift with social desirability, current circumstances, and self-awareness, so the profile indicates stated moral preferences rather than guaranteeing behavior.