A632.5.4.RB_How Protected are Your Protected Values

My Protected Values

Ben Franklin’s Tradeoff “Algebra” for completing a tradeoff analysis for Human Rights allows for similarly, weighted combinations of pros and cons to cancel each other out. One of my major protected values is human rights. I feel that all humans have the right to be treated as a human regardless of nationality, sex, ethnic origin, race, age, or religion. We are born free and equal in dignity and rights and no one should be subjected to torture. In this tradeoff analysis case, the pros outweigh the cons:

I do still feel as strongly about them as I did when I began this exercise and the fact that the pros outweigh the cons only confirms my feelings on it.

Another protected value I have is Animal Rights. I feel as though they should not be treated as property and that they also have the right to not be subjected to torture. They should have the right live free.

In this case, the pros of animal rights outweighed the costs of them not having rights. The only thing that changed for me on this topic was it allowed me to see that the difference in the pros and cons list really depends on your moral views and on one really important questions: Which life do you value more, human or animal? The reason I say that is because one of the biggest pros and cons argument stems from exactly that question. My opinion stays the same though, I still think animals should have the right to not be experimented upon or tortured.

My third protected value is stopping deforestation. I feel that the its only common sense that the earth gives us natural resources that when gone, they are gone forever. They do not replenish themselves, so it only makes since to be more conservative about it. In my head, there are no pros to deforestation other than to fill some corporate man’s wallet, at the expense of human life.

After doing the “tradeoff” algebra, we are still left with three really big cons to deforestation. This absolutely did not change my opinion on the matter. No matter how you look at it, deforestation is not good for us humans or good for the earth. Anyone who supports it only has short-sighted benefits in their heads.

References:

http://greengarageblog.org/17-important-pros-and-cons-of-deforestation

http://connectusfund.org/list-of-8-key-pros-and-cons-of-animal-rights

https://www.prismdecision.com/how-to-complete-a-tradeoff-analysis/