Is it more important to be a good person or to preform good acts? (virtue ethics vs. Action ethics)

When someone is a good person one can assume they participate in good acts. If an individual was a bad person one may assume they participate in bad acts. If a bad person participated in good acts they would not be as bad of a person in respect to their actions. However if a good person was to participate in bad acts it would make them a worse person in respect to their actions. Therefore I believe it is more important to do good acts then to be a good person. A person can be considered bad and still do good actions to redeem themselves or their character. The acts themselves make a person good or bad so it is better to have good actions then to be a good person. A preacher is a good person and assumed to partake in good actions. However some priests have been convicted of inappropriate incidences with minors. Just because the priest is good doesn’t mean that his actions will be good as well. If the priest partook in good actions then it would matter little if he was good or bad as a persons because he would be judged or seen by his actions as well as changing the perspective in which we view him or his character.

Does the process by which decisions are made matter more than the outcomes of these decisions? (procedural justice vs. distributive justice) When making a decision on a large scale it is important that the process by which the decision is made is fair and just otherwise the decision itself does not carry merit among the populations of people in which the decision effects. The decision itself is less important than the process by which it is determined because it must be considered justified and fair by the people it effects. If the process of the decision is not chosen to fit the situation accordingly it will not be upheld by the local populations. If the the people involved don’t feel that the process in which the decision was made was fair they will not support the outcome of the decision no matter what the conclusion was. If there was an election for a new leader and the people whom vote do not feel that the way in which they vote is fair will not vote. There will still be a leader elected but the leader is not actually endorsed by the people in which the leader now has responsibility and control. The people have lost trust in their leader and processes and no longer feel that they are represented by the new leader and now choose to overthrow him or vote him out. There is much unrest with the process of the decision and the people are back at square one. Even if they actually wanted the new leader elected they have to hope in the process that gives them the choice.

Do ecosystems matter for their own sake or do they only matter to the extent that they impact humans? (ecocentric ethics vs. anthropocentric ethics) It is clear that ecosystems matter in relation to human existence. However ecosystems have been present on the earth long before human life. In fact you could argue that ecosystems are the reason why the earth is able to support such a diversity of organisms. Ecosystems play a major role in the earth processes. The earth recycles every chemical through elaborate processes that are connected to the different ecosystems found in the world. Ecosystems are larger than human needs they are earthly needs. If the human population infringed on every ecosystem on the earth to the max for human resource gain it would hurt the earth tremendously. In fact we have already done this with carbon. We have released millions of years of concentrated carbon into the earths atmosphere that would not be there any other way except for mass human extraction and consumption. This carbon threatens the diverse ecosystems of earth and every living organisms future on this planet. Although ecosystems can be reconstructed naturally it takes a long time because of the naturally occurring processes that make this happen, humans are destroying them at a rate that puts out own future existence into question. The deep rooted nature of the earths many ecosystems in the health and balance of the planet itself deems them more important then just the extent on which they effect humans.