This thread has a lot of good responses from a number of people who are not ideologically blinded.
About 50 bucks an hour according to my employer.
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he did not really imply, he was merely posing a hypothetical.
Whatever makes you happy ~;p
As for your original question, now that I think about it, I guess there's something to say for the position that most human individuals are capable of both doing great evil or good deeds, depending on their situation and their state of mind.
I imagine that some heroic deeds were done in the heat of the moment, and the person doing it might not have done the heroic thing if he had time to ponder his actions. And also the other way around - people who are naturally cautious and timid, but with strong willpower, might be able to sacrifce themselves after making a conscious decision.
I'm not sure if it's plausible that someone would by his own initiative sacrifice himself because he thought it was expected of him as opposed to genuine altruism. I wouldn't rule it out.
Heroic deeds are still admirable even if you take a down-to-earth approach and examine the reasons and motivations, of course.