1. The following bonus is worth 3 points.
2. To receive the bonus, you must submit your response with your essay as part of the same document.
3. If you submit the essay late, you may not submit the bonus.
4. There is no partial credit. If your response to the bonus topic is incorrect or is poorly written, you will receive no credit.
Write a short paragraph in which you respond to the following:
It’s snowing, and the roads are slippery so that the cars in front of you are sliding. You get out of your car and along with several motorists push the sliding cars so that they regain their traction. Traffic is now moving, and now you can continue on your way to work.
How would each of the above writers view your actions?
Passage 1
Ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done, if the rule of duty does not condemn them. . . . He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble; he who betrays the friend that trusts him is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations. . . . The great majority of good actions are intended not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them he is not violating the rights, that is, the legitimate and authorized expectations, of anyone else. The multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the object of virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in a thousand) has it in his power to do this on an extended scale, in other words to be a public benefactor, are but exceptional, and on these occasions alone is he called on to consider public utility; in every other case, private utility, the interest or happiness of some few persons is all he has to attend to.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Passage 2
A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition—that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it. . . . Even if it should happen that, owing to a special disfavor of fortune, or to the niggardly provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing, and there should remain only the good will . . . then, like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value in itself. Its usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add to nor take away anything from its value.
