Pure Logic and Pure Ethics – What Is the Relationship Between Them?

Are logical abilities really opposed to ethical ones, such that when there is more of one, there will be less of the other? Or are they nevertheless independent of each other?
Let us test this experimentally.

“Pure” logic means that the scale of the corresponding logic questions must refer only to logical abilities, and must not oppose logical abilities to ethical ones in a forced-choice format. The same is also true when constructing a question scale for “pure” ethical abilities. The wording of the question must not imply any opposition between logic and ethics.

Guided by these requirements, we compiled two different question scales for pure logic, and also two different ones for pure ethics. Two scales each because they use questions from already existing questionnaires for which statistics have been collected. In some questionnaires, one set of suitable questions is available, while in others, another set is available.

So:
Question scale “Pure Logic-1”:
(after the question, the correlation of its type profile with the averaged type profile of the whole scale is indicated)

1. I have a good command of the formal-logical laws of thinking. 0.98
2. When making decisions, I almost always soberly rely on calculation and scientific knowledge. 0.97
3. I instantly notice other people’s minor logical flaws. 0.96
4. I would make an excellent analyst, mathematician, programmer, or geologist. 0.97
5. I have good analytical thinking and strong logic; I like to generalize facts and am good at understanding schemes, classifications, and structures. 0.99

Question scale “Pure Ethics-1”

1. I am a very emotionally sensitive and benevolent person; I subtly feel nuances in relationships. 0.97
2. I often notice emotional nuances that others do not feel. 0.98
3. I feel very well how people really relate to me — it is difficult to deceive me in this. 0.96
4. I often understand how and what a person feels even before they tell me about it. 0.98
5. I easily pick up weak signals of sympathy. 0.98
6. I am good at understanding the experiences and moods of the people around me. 0.99
7. I comprehend the world through feelings, emotions, and empathy. 0.95
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8. I am usually poorly informed about my friends’ feelings. -0.98
9. I am emotionally “short-sighted” and usually distinguish only very vivid and strong experiences in others. -0.99
10. I do not always understand exactly when people become upset and offended — but when they are crying their eyes out, that is clear. -0.99

Question scale “Pure Logic-2”:

1. In terms of my abilities, I am a good logician and analyst. 0.99
2. I easily understand drawings and spatial diagrams. 0.91
3. I have “iron” logic; I never confuse cause and effect in my conclusions. 0.97
4. I have well-organized scientific thinking. 0.99

Question scale “Pure Ethics-2”

1. I always sense brief drops and rises in other people’s moods from nuances in the interlocutors’ voices. 0.99
2. I have a good sense of relationships between people and am perceptive about the intrigues and schemes of ill-wishers. 0.97
3. I notice even weak shades in people’s behavior. 0.97
4. I constantly sense “emotional fluids,” emotional signals from other people. 0.97
5. I will easily and unmistakably discern a state of happiness in my friend. 0.98
6. The world of my inner ethical feelings and experiences is precisely the field in which decisions are made. 0.92
7. I admit that I like to gossip about acquaintances. 0.45
8. I always quickly sense changes in the interlocutor’s mood. 0.99
9. I have a good sense of other people’s intonations, gestures, and looks. 0.98
10. I easily pick up whether praise or flattery has affected a person, whether it has improved their mood. 0.96
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11. It is difficult for me to read another person’s mood from their eyes and facial expressions. -0.96
12. I am worse than others at recognizing people’s moods from their faces. -1.00
13. I admit that I am poor at understanding people’s feelings, so I am cautious in communication and try to keep my distance from people. -0.95

The scales “Pure Logic-1” and “Pure Ethics-1” were used in two already completed questionnaires with collected statistics, which were taken by a total of 366 different respondents.
The scales “Pure Logic-2” and “Pure Ethics-2” were used in two other completed questionnaires with collected statistics, which were taken by a total of 432 different respondents.

For each scale, each respondent’s score is calculated as the sum of their normalized answers to all questions on that scale. After this, the coefficient of linear correlation between the two resulting scale scores is calculated on the array of all subjects, separately for the indicators of pure logic and pure ethics. The correlation is calculated in two ways: directly (“as is,” without adjusting the sample for equal representation of all psychotypes in it), and additionally after a mathematical procedure for adjusting the sample to equal representativeness of all TIMs. In both cases, as it turns out, the correlation coefficients differ only by 0.01, that is, they are practically identical in magnitude; therefore, below we show the correlation coefficients calculated only for the second case, that is, for the sample adjusted to equal representation of all TIMs. This is achieved by multiplying all the numbers between which the correlation is calculated by the square root of the share of representation of the corresponding respondent’s type in the sample. The second method is theoretically more valid, since it excludes the possibility of nonzero correlations arising because of type heterogeneity in the sample.

If logic and ethics are independent of each other, then the correlation between the scores of the “pure logic” and “pure ethics” scales should be equal to zero, within statistical error. If, however, logic and ethics have mutually opposed brain mechanisms, and the enhanced development of logic hinders the development of ethics in the same individual, just as the reverse is also true, then the correlation between the pure logic and pure ethics scales will necessarily be negative.

Negative — and clearly negative, with a strongly expressed mutual opposition between the two scales — is exactly what it turned out to be.
Specifically:
In the sample of 366 respondents, the correlation between “Pure Logic-1” and “Pure Ethics-1” was “minus 0.54.” The confidence interval of this correlation, at a 95% confidence level, is from -0.47 to -0.60.
In the sample of 432 respondents, from two other questionnaires, the correlation between “Pure Logic-2” and “Pure Ethics-2” was “minus 0.44.” The confidence interval of this correlation, again at a 95% confidence level, is from -0.38 to -0.50. The correlation here is slightly lower in absolute value because the “Pure Logic-2” scale is also weaker — it consists of only 4 questions.

If the logic scale is composed of 10 or more questions, then the correlation between pure logic and pure ethics in any questionnaires will tend toward a value of about -0.65. This is a very substantial negative correlational relationship. But even an empirical correlation of -0.44 is quite sufficient to speak of the mutual opposition of logical and ethical mechanisms in the human brain.

CONCLUSION: The mechanisms in the human central nervous system that ensure the development and functioning of logic and ethics are mutually antagonistic. Strong logic substantially interferes with the development of strong ethics, and vice versa.

The only objection to the obtained result and corresponding conclusion may be the assumption that people familiar with socionic typology unconsciously underestimate their ethical abilities if they classify themselves as a logical type, and, conversely, underestimate their logical abilities if they classify themselves as an ethical psychotype. We do not think that this effect actually exists at all, but even if it did, it is highly unlikely that it could produce such a substantially negative correlation, in absolute value, between logic and ethics.

In any case, in a recent study at PNAS using a sample of 635 thousand people (!!!), a negative correlation was also shown between the questionnaire scales SQ (abilities for analysis and systematization) and EQ (empathic abilities), scales that are very, very close to the traditional socionic scales for measuring logic and ethics. Although this correlation in the mentioned study was lower in absolute value (-0.21), one must take into account the significantly greater noisiness of the results in this large-scale experiment on half a million people: the average intelligence coefficient of the subjects, and therefore also their ability for objective self-assessment, was certainly lower on average in that experiment than in ours.

APPENDIX: The attached figures show a graph of the dependence of the pure ethics indicator on the pure logic indicator for respondents of questionnaire 085. In addition, for each of the four scales used in the study, their resulting socionic profiles are presented, showing that these scales do indeed measure socionic logic and ethics.