1. Is it more important to be a good person or to perform good acts (virtue ethics vs. action ethics)?

This is a tough question to answer but I think it’s more important to perform good acts. Naturally it could be assumed that the good person would perform good acts, but that is not necessarily true. A good person could be someone who just has good thoughts but never acts on them. Yes, a person who performs good acts could also perform bad acts but I think it’s worth taking that risk to see the good acts come to fruition. Besides, a person who performs good acts could be seen as a good person while a good person who performs a bad act could still be seen as a good person. This all changes under the circumstances however. A person who does 100 good acts and one horrific act will likely never be seen as a good person whereas a person who does 100 bad acts and and one fantastic act could potentially be seen as a good person. It all depends on the magnitude of the acts.

5. Do the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure                 and pain of humans (speciesism)?

I think that this question depends on the animal. For the majority of animals on Earth, I think that yes, they do matter as much. If you think about an animal like a mosquito, however, I highly doubt you’re going to find someone who values its pain and pleasure as much as a human’s. There are plenty of species on Earth that don’t even have the capacity to even feel pain or pleasure and I think in that case they do not matter as much as a human’s since they can’t even process it. This subject matter gets very tricky when it comes to farm animals. Farm animals have the ability to experience pain and pleasure and naturally you’d think that it’s just as important as ours since every species has the right to live on Earth. I think that almost everyone wants to care about animals and would hate to see one in pain but from a global perspective, the reality is that their pain and pleasure do not matter as much. If it did matter as much, you would not be seeing any kind of meat sold at any store at any place in the world. It’s hard to even think about how the world would be or how it would even progress if everyone was a vegan.

6. Is my own life worth more than the lives of others, the same, or less (selfishness                vs. altruism)?

For this question I believe that all three options are valid depending on the circumstance. Odds are you value your life more than everyone else. If it came down to a life or death situation with you and another person of the same age and same background, odds are you’d do everything you could to save yourself. When you change the scenario, the perspective changes quickly. If there’s a life or death situation between you and your child (if you had one), I’d bet that you’d do everything in your power to save your child rather than yourself. In these cases you could perceive your life as being worth more or worth less. In my everyday life, assuming everything is normal and I’m not running into a freak situation, I think of my life as worth the same as everyone else’s. What makes me more important than the guy who sits next to me in class? How could I be seen as being worth more than someone on the other side of the world in a completely different living situation? I think it’s very valid to believe your life is worth more 24/7 if that’s how you think but I think it’s also valid to put the needs of others before yourself or even give equal treatment to others like you would to yourself.