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

Ethically, I highly believe in both being a good person and performing good acts, but if I had to choose one over the other I would have to say you should be a good person above performing good acts. My reasoning on choosing ethical virtue over action in this situation is because I think that if you are a good person, you will perform good acts but performing good acts does not necessarily mean you are a good person. For example, we sometimes see celebrities get into trouble on the news, and then days later we might see them doing good acts, however, just because they did a good act does not mean they are a good person. It makes them look like a good person but it is very possible that they are not. Another reason I pick virtue over action is because if you are a good person doing good acts you are more likely to care about what you are doing and will have more success in your actions opposed to somebody who is not a good person doing a good act and less likely to be successful.

4. Do ecosystems matter for their own sake, or do they only matter to extent that they impact humans (ecocentric ethics vs. Anthropocentric)?

Ecosystems definitely impact humans without question but they impact other things as well. All living things matter and from an ecocentric view the animals and plants that live in the same ecosystem. The ecosystem would be completely different without the other mammals and plants, which would change the entire ecosystem for humans. Basically what I am trying to say is that humans rely on the ecosystem along with other living things, meaning the ecosystem is here for its own sake and we’re just here living in it. A given ecosystem could probably be more successful without humans do to the waste that we produce that typically destroy the environment. If humans did not live in these ecosystems then the ecosystem could easily sustain itself but due to anthropocentrism views, more humans do not care about what happens to their ecosystem and most humans probably believe that the ecosystems sole purpose is to serve them.

6. Is my own life worth more than the lives of others, the same, or less (selfishness vs. altruism)?

My life is worth the same as anyone else, whether rich or poor, or black or white, we are all human beings breathing the same air and living on the same planet. Unfortunately some people disagree with this but I believe that if you have a great balance between selfishness and altruism then you will have the same or similar points as me in this question. I personally like to picture comparing ones selfishness and altruism as a scale where altruism is lowest on a scale from 1 to 10 and selfishness being 10 or the highest on the scale. If you are 10 on the scale then you think too highly of yourself and you should care more about the people surrounding you. If you are 1 on the scale then you need more confidence in yourself and maybe a little ego boost to meet selfishness at five with a balance of the two.