Week 11 Discussion — Must You Do the Most Good? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

You have probably passed up a small comfort to help someone, or kept a promise that cost you more than you expected. Utilitarianism says the right act is the one that produces the greatest overall happiness, counted equally for everyone, and Peter Singer's drowning child asks how far that kind of reasoning reaches.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: In Peter Singer's drowning child, you pass a shallow pond where a child is drowning, and wading in would ruin your clothes. If you can save a life at small cost, must you, and does that duty carry over to strangers far away whom many others could also help? Take a position, say whether you accept or reject Singer's principle, and test your view against one small cost in your own life, such as a spare hour or a planned purchase.

Option B: You promised to help a friend move, and a paid shift comes up for the same day. Should you keep a promise when breaking it would do a little more good? Take a position, say which view fits the case better, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, or neither, and test your view against one promise from your own life that was costly to keep.

There is no single right answer. Careful thinkers still disagree about how much we owe strangers, and about whether a good rule should ever give way to a better result. Pick the option you actually care about, and tell us your reasoning.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, say whether you must wade in, whether the duty carries over to strangers far away, and whether you accept Singer's principle, and test your view on one small cost in your own life; for Option B, say whether you would keep the promise and which view fits the case better, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, or neither, and test your view on one promise of your own.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (consequentialism, utilitarianism, impartiality, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, the justice objection, the rights objection, the demandingness objection, the drowning child, Singer's principle) correctly.
• State the view you reject in its strongest form, give your reason, and say what would change your mind.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
• Keep any example you give away from hot-button topics and real current controversies, and never name a real person in a case.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: state the strongest version of the poster's view in your own words, ask whether their own example really fits the case they tie it to, or offer a variation that pulls the other way. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option B. I think I should keep the promise, and my test is the time I promised to drive a cousin to a job interview and then got invited on a weekend trip. An act utilitarian would weigh that one choice, and the trip might have made more people happier. That is the strongest objection, and I grant that the total might have been bigger. But a rule utilitarian would ask what happens when people generally break promises for a bit more fun, and then nobody could count on anyone. What would change my mind is a case where keeping the promise caused real harm that the person I promised would not want.

Notice how it takes a position, states the other side at its strongest, ties the reason to act and rule utilitarianism as the course defines them, and says what would change the writer's mind. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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