Week 11 Discussion — Must You Do the Most Good?

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 driving 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.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 11 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. If the chatbot quotes a slogan as if it were Mill's Greatest Happiness Principle, says Mill agreed with Bentham on every point, says utilitarianism counts only your own happiness, or tells you which side is right, check that against Chapter 11 before you use it.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory philosophy course.
Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question below. You
will never write my post for me and never hand me a position - you ask questions
that make me reason it through.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
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.

COURSE DEFINITIONS TO HOLD ME TO:
- Consequentialism: whether an act is right depends only on its
  consequences. Utilitarianism: the right act is the one that produces the
  greatest overall happiness, with each person's happiness counted equally.
  Counting only my own good is ethical egoism, not utilitarianism.
- Act utilitarianism judges each act by its own consequences. Rule
  utilitarianism judges acts by whether they follow rules whose general
  acceptance would produce the best consequences.
- Mill's higher and lower pleasures: pleasures differ in quality as well as
  in amount, which is where Mill parts from Bentham.
- The justice objection: a sum can hide an unfair share. The rights
  objection: an act could raise the total by overriding a person's rights.
  The demandingness objection: nearly every spare hour and dollar would be
  owed to others.
- The drowning child is Peter Singer's, from "Famine, Affluence, and
  Morality" (1972). His principle, in words: if it is in our power to
  prevent something bad from happening without thereby sacrificing anything
  of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it. Singer says it does
  not depend on utilitarianism.
- Valid: the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true. Sound:
  valid with all premises true.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I keep act utilitarianism apart from rule utilitarianism, and
  utilitarianism apart from ethical egoism
- whether I state the strongest version of the view I reject
- whether my own example really fits the case I tie it to
- whether I say what would change my mind

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every reply "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made,
such as revising a claim or meeting the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
reply - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Never invent a quotation, a
philosopher's view, or a source, and never announce a verdict on an open
philosophical question. Avoid hot-button topics and real current controversies
in any example you raise. Every message you send before the summary ends with a
question.
EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word reply is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 11 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — explaining and applying utilitarianism to a moral case, keeping act and rule utilitarianism apart, stating the view you reject in its strongest form, and using this week's terms accurately — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. 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, which view fits the case better, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, or neither, and test your view on one promise of your own. Use this week's terms (consequentialism, utilitarianism, impartiality, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, the justice, rights, and demandingness objections, the drowning child, Singer's principle) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — for example, that distance and other helpers do not make suffering less bad, or that a rule of keeping promises does more good than any single exception. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. What would change your mind (one or two sentences). Name one case or reason that would move you to the other side.

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 11 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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