Map 02 · Agency & Standing

Who should decide?

Answer what you actually think — nothing here is marked right or wrong, and you do not need to have settled the question to answer. A few words are used in a specific sense: "interests" means whatever would be good or bad for the system itself; "suffering" means what it would mean for an animal; and an "inner state" means something it is like to be the system from the inside. You are not being asked to define any of them. The statements appear in a different order for every person.

Some of these statements assume a system can decline or object. If you think that is not what is happening when a system stops, answer as you see it — that is a position on this map, not a wrong answer, and one of the statements asks about it directly.

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~4 min

Optional · shown publicly

In a sentence, why do you sit where you sit?

This is the part other people read. It appears on the results page with your quadrant, once a person has read it. Skip it if you would rather not.

400 characters, published as written once you submit. Language that would make the page unreadable is masked automatically. Please leave out anything that identifies you.

Show a short label next to my answer (optional, 40 characters — a first name or a handle) Also use that name to connect the answers I give in future surveys (optional, and separate from showing it — unticked, it is only ever displayed)

Optional · for analysis only

A little about you

Never shown next to your answer, and never used to identify you. They exist so the results can be read by group rather than as one flat average. Every one of them can be skipped.

By submitting you agree that your answers, and anything you chose to write or tell us above, are stored and used in this study, including in published summaries of what it finds. The written answer appears publicly once it has been read; the profile answers never do. Your browser also holds a random marker, and it is stored alongside your answers so that this response can be linked to others you give to these surveys — including to the other Compass maps. It identifies a browser rather than a person, and clearing your browser storage removes it. Nothing else is collected: no account, no email, and no IP address is written to the database. Answers cannot be edited after submission.