Is it more important to be a good person or to perform good acts (virtue ethics vs. action ethics)? I think being a good person and performing good acts are both important. I think maybe being a good person is more important because the first thing to start off with is intentions and good intentions are always the best. We want to feel good so being a good person to others would in turn, make them feel good as well. Performing this act of making other feel good is action ethics. I believe most of us are taught to have good virtues and wanting other to feel good as well is important, that constitutes altruism. However, just because we have good virtues doesn’t always mean we act upon them. I want what’s best for the environment but I find myself not doing everything that I can to help. For instance, recycling is important and helps the environment. However, when I live by myself I don’t recycle. Why? It’s easier to throw everything in one bag and hurl it into the dumpster. I know what I’m doing and I feel bad for it. In opposition, I mostly believe that performing good acts almost requires you to be a good person. My cat was using a critically injured bird as a chew toy outside the other day and I felt awful so I went and grabbed the bird. I put it in a box with towels to make it comfortable even thought I knew it was going to die. I did this because I cared. In contrast, some people that are in trouble with the law are forced to do community service, such as picking up garbage on the highways and such. This doesn’t mean that they are a good person; it’s simply something they have to do to avoid other consequences.
Do the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure and pain of humans (speciesism)? I believe that the pleasure and pain of ALL animals is equally important. Speciesism is very complicated, I believe. I do understand the thought process of people thinking we are of the “hierarchy” of animals. They tend to think this because technically, we are. We build structures, create economies, have higher levels of thinking, and well, just look around. However, I don’t believe that this undermines other animals. I think that every animal understand suffering. They know when they’re hurt and when they’re dying. We can feel that pain, what’s to say the animal can’t? It has organs and when things go wrong in the body it naturally hurts. If a cat is ill, the cat cries when you touch it and lays there, almost completely inactive. Why? Because they know it hurts when they’re touched and they know it hurts when they move. Animals are also more helpless than we are. We have doctors and medicine, and technically they do too but that’s if a human takes them. Who are we to say that we are more important that another living being? Shouldn’t we be compassionate to the hurt and suffering of a more helpless animal? I’ve spoken a lot about pain. But, if I wouldn’t want to see an animal in pain that basically means I want the animal to be in pleasure. I’m happier than a pig in mud when I see my cat happy and playing and purring. It makes me happy. All animals are living and all of our emotional states are or should be equally important. This is just my vision, I understand there are others.
Is my own life worth more than the lives of others, the same, or less (selfishness vs. altruism)? I don’t believe my life is more important than anyone else’s. I’ve tried thinking of multiple circumstances where my mind may change and I can’t think differently. I value human life and I had to see pain and suffering. So if I were ever in a circumstance where it was me or another person, there is about a 99.9% chance that I would sacrifice myself for the other person. No matter who it was. I understand not everyone will think this way and even I may be wrong. Our body has the natural sympathetic nervous system which gives us our “fight or flight”. So I might say that I’ll sacrifice myself, however I don’t know what I’ll actually do because I don’t know what my body will tell me to do. We are instinctive. In terms of ethics, I would say I’m altruistic in this particular manner, I believe I value my life less than other’s lives. However, in other instances of less severity I could be more selfish. I believe it’s human nature to be selfish and altruistic. We’re complicated beings and emotions and feelings are one of the most complex things.
One thought on “My Ethics View”
Hi! I really like the ideas that you brought up, especially with the first question. I agree, I don’t always do what I should, even when I know its right. Your example of recycling is both simple and completely accurate. Also, your analysis of the last question is very similar to my own (https://wp.me/p3RCAy-bgz), and again, I really appreciate the way you are realistic about what you think you would do and what you would actually do when the time came. To me, a healthy balance between selfishness and altruism is where we, as a human race belong, mostly because the majority of us fall short in either respect. You did a really good job!
Hi! I really like the ideas that you brought up, especially with the first question. I agree, I don’t always do what I should, even when I know its right. Your example of recycling is both simple and completely accurate. Also, your analysis of the last question is very similar to my own (https://wp.me/p3RCAy-bgz), and again, I really appreciate the way you are realistic about what you think you would do and what you would actually do when the time came. To me, a healthy balance between selfishness and altruism is where we, as a human race belong, mostly because the majority of us fall short in either respect. You did a really good job!