Question four, “Do ecosystems matter for their own sake, or do they only matter to the extent that they impact humans?”

What a great question! I think that any animal (us included,) cares first about the individuals well being, second about their species well-being, and third about everything else. To truly answer this question you  would have to consider an ecosystem where there are no benefit to humans and no “cuteness factor.” I use the phrase “cuteness factor” to describe our affinity towards animals or ecosystems that we prioritize because they are nice to look at (like pandas, polar bears and coral reefs). All ecosystems are tied together, whether directly or indirectly, so it makes it pretty hard to answer this question since there are virtually no cases of ecosystems that don’t have an affect on one another on Planet Earth. For arguments sake lets consider a completely isolated ecosystem, perhaps “in a galaxy far far away,” that has no effect on humans. Would we still care about it? I would argue that the only reason we would is if it had the potential for us to live on it someday, and potentially save our species. So there you have it, the answer to one age old question with one simple Star Wars reference, and a little imagination. Anthropocentrism, the feeling that humans are what’s important, might not be the completely ethical, but it is certainly our logical way of thinking.

Question six, “Is my own life worth more than the lives of others, the same, or less?”

This question is one that I’ve considered many times before I read this module. I think that when it comes down to it, despite our very social nature, we are all born as very selfish people. My brother and I spent much of our early childhood fighting for who got to play with the best toys. It wasn’t until many years of our parents telling us to share that we finally learned that it wasn’t such a bad thing. I think that altruism, or in this case sharing, is a very learned behavior. My brother and I learned that selfish acts led to a scolding from our parents, and in an attempt to avoid reprimand, we adapted by sharing. When you look at the animal world, altruism is extremely rare, and only occurs when there is plenty of a resource to go around. With people it’s not much different. When things are going well as a society and everyone has their fare share, stealing is usually a rare thing. But in cases like natural disasters when resources become scarce, we see vast amounts of looting and stealing. We resort back to our selfish nature. I think the only reason that the initial question is even relevant is due to human’s ability to manipulate our environment to provide enough resources for everyone. When it comes down to it, we are all just focused on our own behalf and that of our family members, but if there is enough resources to go around we don’t mind sharing on occasion. I truly struggled with this question, and changed my mind several times as to which side I was on, so I look forward to reading the replies to this post because there are certainly many flaws in my argument. This is truly a great question.

Question three, “Does the process by which decisions are made matter more than the outcomes of these decisions?”

Of course the outcomes matter more than the way the decisions were made! We could have a dictator running the United States and if every decision he made had a positive outcome, I would be completely alright with that. The problem with this argument is that it is impossible for the dictator to understand what is in the best interest of the entire country’s population. So let’s say that our dictator is a caring person and wants his decisions to best reflect the people’s views. To accomplish this he sets up a board of advisers, each dedicated to a specific region. Their job is to determine what decisions are in the best interest of  their region… and what do you know it we have the makings of a democracy. As you can see, the only importance of “how decisions are made,” is whether that system is efficient at achieving the correct outcome. In other words, procedural justice is only relevant if it accomplishes distributive justice.