selfishness

Back in April, my English class was beginning to do some practice essays for the AP test, and this is the first one we did. I thought this might be an interesting essay to post because it questions the role of incentives for participation in donations. Since it was our first timed essay, my teacher was going over essay organization and structure and provided some examples to help us brainstorm ideas and then the class began to discuss other examples they’ve encountered in their lives, especially charity events sponsored by our school. For example, we had an event called “Pasta for Pennies”; it’s pretty self-explanatory: students donate pennies and other coins for good causes (I couldn’t remember what they were) and the student who donates the most amount of change wins a pasta dinner. So, wouldn’t the student pretty much pay for the pasta? Does the incentive diminish the purpose of the charity event or would it help persuade people to donate?

Free-Response Question: The practice of offering incentives for charitable acts is widespread, from school projects to fund drives by organizations such as public television stations, to federal income tax deductions for contributions to charities. In a well-written essay, develop a position on the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. Support your position with evidence from your reading, observation, and/or experience.

The actual question can be found in this PDF file: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/ap/students/english/ap07_eng_...

My brother Jonny and I used to be close. He's a year younger than me and I can remember when we spent days and days playing together; we were best friends as children. I was always on his side, he was always on mine. We were family and we took the blame together, shared the joy together, everything. In our family it was Chelsea and Jonny, the young ones, the kids.

envy is an evil thing, makes you realizes things about yourself you didn't necessarily want to know at all. I just read something about someone else and realized that I was jealous of that person. Haveing gone through a very bad experience they had written about it not for sympathy but to show strength and for their own personal healing. And I was jealous.

A little while ago I was talking to my friends about volunteering at the local soup kitchen. My mom goes there one night a month to serve dinner to the homeless in the community. It astounded me to hear some of the remarks from some of my friends. I couldn't believe how grossly misinformed one of my friends really was.

The American declaration of independence, the French Declaration of Rights of Man, the U.N's Universal Declaration of Rights of Man like us to believe that all men are equal all want us to believe all men are equal. The problem is all of those in the United States congress when the DOI was written had slaves and did not, after that paper work, go home to free them all.

I am a practicing Catholic. I am studying to become a biologist/doctor/researcher/any of the above. I've written about this before, but my views have since developed. . . and possibly regressed. I believe in evolution. I also believe in God. I go to church every week, pray a rosary once a month and try my damnedest not to do anything that'll piss off the pastor.

Why do people do good things? To make them feel better about themselves? Because we are supposed to be nice? Forgive me if I think this is bullshit. They are looking for a handout, either money or in some other form, kindness is generally a selfish act, we just don't notice it. Two examples.

#1:

One of the main ideas behind a lot of modern society, I think, is that human beings are by nature selfish and self-absorbed...an "every man for himself" sort of mentality.

 However, shouldn't our ability to acknowledge that aspect of ourselves make some sort of a difference in how we act around other people? Consider the following: