Altruism: WhatEVER!

Firstly, I agree with Molly completely: of course one cannot order someone else to be an organ donor, when they themselves are not, and this same principle applies to soooo many other things, too...hypocriticism just is not right.
Secondly, I would just like to mention the thing I found most interesting in Mrs. Pescovitz's speech: that in a study, 24/24 babies wanted to help the adult when he dropped something (seemingly by ACCIDENT), but not a single one of those babies tried to help when the same person threw the object, as if on purpose. This stat pretty much proved to me that inherently, human beings want to help others. And whether this instinct stems from a very early need for praise and self-pride, or not, it DOES NOT MATTER! What matters is that is instinct for a baby/human to help. Because in the end your own satisfaction with yourself for doing good does not hurt ANYBODY, while your good deed helped somebody else and yourself...I think it might just be ok to feel happy when you do something good!
This statistic also gave me hope to believe that any human, whether possessing knowledge of the different types of ethics or not, can make the "right" decision when faced with such simple challenges as to hold the door for the little old lady or not. Altruism need not be on their minds!
3rd: I LOVED Sarah's topic for the areopagum (oooh, i hope that's right!) I think that art can speak volumes about history, and more importantly, reveal how real people felt about the things going on around them. We just finished up a unit in spanish on analyzing Spanish art, and though seemingly abstract and vague, each painting had a precise and exact meaning, each showing how the painter felt about the times he was living in. In particular, Francisco Goya painted gorgeous colorful paintings of the life of the rich Spaniards, and all the characters were always happy with rosy cheeks; they were obviously enjoying eachother's company and the place and times in which they lived. But in actuality, Goya was satirizing the ignorance of these people, and the paintings revealed the huge separation of the rich Spaniards from reality.