Ethics of our Lives

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  1. Is it more important to be a good person or to perform good acts (virtue ethics vs. action ethics)?
    1. I believe that what you do will define you as an individual, so performing good acts make you a good person in my mind. Whatever you believe in you will both consciously and unconsciously do, making your actions the true ultimatum in defining if you’re good or bad. The line isn’t as clear as good or bad but you get the gist. You can believe you are a good person and talk about being a good person but not following through with what you are saying disproves it all. You can talk all you want and think you are being a good person, but as mentioned with ethics it’s all about what you should do, not about what you should say. One good act speaks over 1,000 good thoughts. Overall the good acts are received more widely and therefore action ethics go farther to prove what kind of person you are.
  2. Does the process by which decisions are made matter more than the outcomes of these decisions (procedural justice vs. distributive justice)?
    1. The process is one of the most fundamental things in making decisions, and determines the decision made. In certain situations you can argue for either way, but overall I lean more towards the process as being more important. The ethics in the process will go a long way in determining the final outcome, which makes it of higher importance. You often hear of people meaning well, but the end product is not what lived up to expectations, and in my mind I would focus on more on what they tried to do in the process rather than the outcome. This goes back to the question before of being a good person. Their actions were intended in good heart, and therefore I believe they are person with a good heart. The actions performed in the process mean the most as they involve the true intentions of the person, even if the end result is not what was ethically okay.
  3. Do the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure and pain of humans (speciesism)?
    1. Other species of animals are a large presence in this world, but do not compare to the dominance of humans. Animals struggle daily because of humans, but humans struggle because of humans just as much. I believe that as a species there is a lot we can improve upon and we should focus on that before we focus on animals. I would rather pay to end hunger in the world that to save another animals life. I’m not saying that I don’t care for animals, I do, it’s just that I do put humans before animals. Most of this is that I can sympathize with humans more than I can with any animal. Animals are a prominent part in my world, but saving humans is more important to me as we are a more dominant species in the world as we all know and as history has shown for centuries.

5 thoughts on “Ethics of our Lives”

  1. Hi! I’m Micaelie. I thought your first answer was a different way to look at it as I did and I also agree. I talked about how even small acts throughout the day and meaning well is still just as good as doing good acts. I think I looked at the question as though a person who usually is rude or mean in their everyday lives and does just one good thing isn’t as good as a person who is respectful and kind consistently. That person may never amount to doing one, or however many, good thing/s but they are still good people.

  2. Hi Josh my name is Kevin. I liked your response to number 3. I chose not to cover this one in my reply, but I couldn’t agree more. I think a lot of people these days are afraid to say that when it comes down to it, humans should take precedence over animals, but its something that happens everyday and will continue to happen for the betterment of our living situations. Yes there are better ways to go about it, but I have no doubt that its hard to argue the other when the situation calls for it.

  3. Josh,

    I really enjoyed your blog, especially the last paragraph. I also did that question. I agree with you. I believe the lives of non-human animals do matter, but they are not worth more than humans. Humans are the dominant race of this Earth. Humans need to survive off of animals. If I had to make a choice between saving a human and an animal, I would save the human. Check out my blog at: https://wp.me/p3RCAy-bfj

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