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

Being a good person may keep you from doing bad acts where good acts will not keep you from doing bad acts. The reason that this class will focus on action ethics has to do with being able to sense actions, by seeing personally or feeling the effects of a positive action but knowing the virtue or a person or people in general is difficult on a small scale. In the scale of our studies it would be almost impossible. I agree with the reading that in most cases it in not a choice of one or the other, most actions are driven by virtue. The stance I take is due to the fear of bad acts by unvirtuous individuals. If there were only good acts coming from an individual it would be assumed that that was due to virtue but it may not be true. A person of that description would be a beneficial addition to society despite the fact that the virtue may not support the ideals being worked toward. This would obviously change if the bad actions started to outweigh the good.

2. Do the ends justify the means (ends ethics vs. means ethics)?

This ethical debate has to do with the impacts that will result from the “means” verses the impacts from the “ends.” In the example used of cutting down trees to stop the spread of a fire, a few trees or even many trees being cut down can save many more trees, people’s homes, and even lives. Obviously this would be an easy, almost strait forward, choice. What if the impact of the ends and means were close? Take eating candy, the end result would be satisfaction of taste buds and the means would be adding unnecessary and unhealthy calories to your diet. Would the satisfaction of your taste buds outweigh the result of the extra calories? There may be some with will power strong enough not to resist the temptation on occasion but many do fall prey to a sweet tooth. This may not be a very liberal interpretation but a good example of when impacts decide if the ends justify the means.

4. Do ecosystems matter for their own sake, or do they only matter to the extent that they impact humans (ecocentric ethics vs. anthropocentric ethics)?

For the matter of sustainability an ecocentric ethical approach would be most effective, in the sense that it would help keep the environment stable, although not completely because the pollution being produced is increasing. The ecosystem is not pollution itself in any high amounts but any changes for human benefit is almost guaranteed to have ties to pollution or create waste. The counter argument is that the increasing population will lead to the need for more land and area for production. Although it will be more than possible to increase production of the current developed areas, at some point there may be a need to use new land to keep the current standard of living. If that standard of living is to live with excess it would again be better to be ecocentrism but if there is a point where developing new land will help humans survive very few will take anthropocentric view.