1. On Virtue and Action:

Virtue and action are not mutually exclusive. It is the consequence of action that forms virtue, and virtue that influences action. Which of these is more important? The is a matter of perspective. For example, a politician places a high value on human survival to gain the trust and votes of the constituency, yet, when elected, authorizes toxic waste to be dumped in to the water supply of one of the constituent communities. By this example, it is easy to say that action and virtue should be a pure reflection of one another. Yet consider another similar example: a community of human beings claims to be sustainable but sacrifices wood from a forest to keep their homes warm enough to survive a harsh winter. In both of these examples, the reflection between action and virtue is blurred, yet the community of humans must burn a certain amount of a limited resource to survive. From an antrhopocentric perspective their end may ethically justify the means, even though, from an ecocentric perspective the forest will dwindle year to year until it and the non-human life it also sustains is gone. In my opinion, the line between anthropocentric and ecocentric must maintain a balance that allows the biomes of humans and non-humans to coexist.

5) On Speciesism:

Sentience, some will say, is the right by which humans may be at the top of the priority list that concerns conservation of species. We are smart creatures, but we are also selfish. To say that humans are more important than non-humans is elitist, and does not factor in the pain non-humans may be exposed to by our anthropocentric actions. However, to say that humans have a responsibility as sentient beings to avoid invasive actions on non-human life is closer to what I believe to be the truth. This responsibility should factor in to our procedural justice, and combine with our ability to foresee possible consequences for both humans and non-humans. Our sentience allows us to do this, and the exercise of generating questions about possible consequences is easier than answering those questions. For example, in the case of wood-burning to survive winter: How much wood is the ethical amount? Should the community re-plant trees elsewhere in the forest to re-balance the ecosystem? Are there any alternative methods of keeping warm that should be explored? This final question brings an interesting phrase, ‘alternative methods.’ If a method is deemed unethical, if the community democratically agrees wood-burning is a violation of its collective ecocentric system of virtues, it is the responsibility of the community to either research and implement alternative methods of surviving the cold, or adopt an anthropocentric system of virtues to survive

2&3) On Procedural Justice and Sustainable Decision Making:

Americans are democratic by nature, and democracy is a collaborative process of decision making. Yet because we are sentient, it is on our part to speak for non-sentient species as well as our future generations when deliberating amonsgt ourselves. There can be no sustainable lifestyle between humans and the environment if humans fail to account for possible impact of human action on non-human elements of Earth. If we are to be true to our American democratic nature, then humans must learn to speak for non-humans in our procedural justice process. Our virtues must weigh both anthropocentric and ecocentric viewpoints that our actions to an end will not be brought into ethical question.