Ethics Post #3

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

Although both of these are subjective, whether or not the act is good for everyone or just a certain group of people or just the one person. But…to each his own.
While being a good person and doing good things are both important, I think being a good person is better. I’d like to assume that by being a good person means you perform small acts of kindness all the time subconsciously. Varying from saying thank you to holding the door to giving money to the homeless to tutoring someone for free. These are small acts of kindness that make differences in peoples lives. If you’re genuinely a good person, you don’t even think about these small acts, they are just part of who you are. When someone doesn’t hold a door for me I say to myself, “Well that was rude.” then move on with my life. While if someone does hold the door , I say thank you with a small smile and just move on with the rest of my day. Even though I hardly even thought about the good act of the person who did subconsciously hold the door, the person who did not hold the door affected me for just those two seconds. Those are 2 whole seconds of your day thinking about something negative when a good act could make you think something positive and therefore do something positive subconsciously for someone else. These subconscious acts turn into deliberate acts of kindness as well.

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

Personally, I’ve always been a little hypocritical about this subject. I’ve always treated dogs better than I treat humans but I’m never afraid to kill a bug. I think I’ve always treated things that are nice to me or don’t terrify me well. But I don’t treat them the same as adult humans (I say adult because I talk to dogs like they are excitable toddlers.) However, speciesism is something that, I don’t think, has crossed many peoples’ minds. Why are humans so much better than other animals just because we have one extraordinary organ in our skulls? Humans think we are better because we are smarter than these other animals in different ways. Humans are mean to animals who try to kill but we are the ones invading their territory usually. I think we should treat animals nicely just because they do not have the same brain power to think logically like we do and therefore do not know any better unless they are domesticated.

3. Does the process by which decisions are made matter more than the outcomes of these decisions (procedural justice vs. distributive justice)?

I think the decision matters more than the process of the decision for life situations as long as it’s the right decision for the situation. The process is important but if it’s too long or too short and the same decision is made either way it doesn’t matter because in the end…the decision was made. In my major however, process does matter. In graphic design we have to make roughly 100 sketches until we find the idea want to go with, from there we are constantly refining our idea work weeks by our selves and with feedback from others until we have a finished product. In this instance, process is just as, if not more important than the decision/final product. But for life decisions like picking a husband or a court trial, the process is important but in the end the decision of picking the ‘right guy’ or finding a person guilty or not is the important part of the process.

2 thoughts on “Ethics Post #3

  1. Hey my name is Kevin. Your post stood out to me as I had a different view on a few of these questions so just here to voice my opinion. I’ll focus on the last question when you say “as long as it’s the right decision for the situation”. I think this becomes extremely difficult to defend when there is no “right” decision. A lot of times these are extremely difficult decisions which is why I tend to believe more in the process than the outcome. Check out my post here: http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/02/your-ethics-views-k-leimkuhler/

  2. HI my name is Josh Tubay, and this is good post, but we answered differently for all of these questions. For some of these, especially the first one, I agree with you on some parts. I think that these questions are very situational and I approached them in different situations than you did. It’s very interesting to think about them all this way.

    If you want to read mine it’s here:
    http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/02/ethics-of-our-lives/

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