Question 1:

I think it depends on the perspective. If the question is on a population-level basis, performing good acts is more important. If the question is on an individual-level basis, being a good person is more important. In general, I think being a good person and performing good acts are two integrated concepts. In other words, I think most of the time it would be difficult to prefer one over the other. This is because being a good person is beneficial the most to the self and performing good acts is beneficial the most to the surroundings of the self (society, environment, etc). For example, being a good person helps the person be more pure and calm such he/she can withstand the hardships of life in a better way. Moreover, performing good acts will help society live in more tranquility, for example there will be no robberies. Imagine a situation where a person is motivated to perform a good act not because of the intrinsic property that this act is good but to impress another person or a whole group of people. In this case, even though the outcome of this situation is positive on the surroundings that were affected by this good act, I think the person’s self didn’t benefit from this good act because the interior motive wasn’t pure. I think in a way this is like hypocrisy, where a person does something good caring only about what others think of him/her. My point is, it is not enough to perform good acts, our intentions need to be pure. At the same time, a good person that doesn’t perform good acts is not reaping the full rewards and not benefiting his/her surroundings.

Question 2:

In my opinion, the ends don’t justify the means. At least, not always. Imagine a situation where a person would like to donate money to charity but the person doesn’t own any money. As a result, the person steals money or starts gaining money in some illegal way like selling drugs. Then, the person donates the illegally gained money to charity. In this case, even though the person had good intentions of helping needy people, the actions caused harm to another group of people, those who were rubbed or sold drugs. That’s why I think the ends don’t justify the means. However, the example provided in the module about cutting down trees to enable the growth of more trees, makes me think twice. In such a circumstance, I think the ends do justify the means. In a sense, it seems to me like a sacrifice for the greater good. In my opinion, whenever we are faced with an ends ethics vs. means ethics dilemma, it would be good to ask: Is there a better mean to reach the same end? If the answer is yes, then we can choose the better mean. Otherwise, we could try and quantify the benefits of reaching such an end versus the cost that we need to pay, i.e. the cons of the mean.

Question 6:

I would say my life is worth the same as the lives of others. Part of the reason why I think so is that it seems intractable to quantify how much is a life worth. Is it based on what we could contribute to this world? but how can we determine a person’s potential? Furthermore, If we could reform the question to: Do you deserve to live more than others? My answer would still be the same, but this reveals more about the question. For example, consider a life and death situation where two people are endangered and only one of them can live, assume that they are of the same age group so that age isn’t a factor in determining who deserves to live. In such a situation, I think both people deserve to live equally, because even if one of them is a bad person and the other is a good person, they both should get the same opportunity to redeem themselves.