Questions

  1. I agree with the idea that ends are important than means. The consequence is the most important thing, and no one will care about how do you achieve the consequences. That is your own business to decide how to achieve the goal. For example, a math problem could have several ways to solve it, and what students need to do is only to solve it and get credits. What actions you use and whether they are appropriate or not is another question we can talk about. If you use illegal means, it is also your responsibility to bear the consequence. Same theory applies to the example in the text. To be honest, I don’t think chopping down trees is fundamentally wrong, and I only care about whether the consequence is good or not. Doctors are trying to save a dog from a car accident, which the action is right, but unfortunately the dog dies. People usually say at least they did best to save it. So what? I feel like that is excuse, and they just using this excuse to comfort themselves or other people. What is the meaning of the action? The consequence is bad, and the action becomes meaningless. That is why I believe the consequence is more important.
  2. All lives have feelings, even plants. Scientists have proved that when people sing songs and talk with plant, it will grow stronger than other plants without caring. The view of anthropocentrism in the text is totally unreasonable. Actually, I think humans are less important than species in this world. Nowadays, human active like predators. We cut down forest, causing desertization, and release greenhouse gases, causing global warming. These are impacts of human activities. People even don’t know how to coexist with the ecosystem, but how could some people believe human are more important? However, as mentioned in the text,” we live in a society where specialism is already present and we are already getting a special treatment” I doubt this idea. Talking about virtue, we all know that racism is not good so we are trying our best to improve this situation. We should do same thing to specialism, not let them develop stronger. I understand that we are on the top of the food chain, but one and the most important point we all should never forget is that we are still one part of the food chain, which means in this ecosystem, we do not have any privileges. The nature didn’t treat us special but we think we are special. The nature selected dinosaurs to be the ruler before, like human today, but the nature also selected to destroy them. We may be stronger and cleverer than other species, but that doesn’t mean we are special. On the other, the example about giving death for hunting a deer is not quit right. Human are omnivores; eating meat is okay, like other species also hunting others for food. The wrong thing is that we kill and torture animals for entertainment. I believe those people should be punished by laws. In conclusion, all species are equal, so we shouldn’t look down on them.
  3. This question is really depended on the situation. Theoretically, life is equal for every one. However, it is depended on how do we value our life. Think about fireman, or any other rescue workers, do their lives worth less than other people? Most people may not agree with this idea, so the point is why they are willing to rescue other people in the case of highly risks, even life dangerous? Is it worthy when a policeman sacrifices himself to save a girl form a criminal? On the other hand, think about why we exist? Why we live on this world? What is the meaning of our life? As far as I am concerned, we live to realize the value of our lives. When a fireman rescues a person, he achieves his life value. In addition, Chinese people were influenced by the concept of altruism thousands of years. We had many old sayings like “sacrifice myself to achieve our goal”, “Be the first to worry about the troubles across the land, the last to enjoy universal happiness” or “Who will enter the hell if I don’t?” so I believe I am also an altruism. If under some extremely situations that my life could exchange more people’s lives, I am willing to do it. I believe at that time my life have value and meaning.

One thought on “Questions

  1. Hello my name is Madison Halbom and after reading your post I found your opinions interesting and decided to leave a comment. I like that in your third question you started by saying that this idea was based on various situations. I believe that all lives matter, but I understand your view that in some situations it can be thought of differently. Also I very much agree with you that all non-human’s pain and pleasure matter just as ours do, we are all living beings and should be treated as such. It seems a lot of our ideas are similar, check out my blog at http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/15/module-3-your-ethics-views/

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