Response: Considered Heroism

In response to Rachel Niddrie's post "Thinking About Kindness" (February 15, 2012):
While I'd agree that heroism is often unconsidered and immediate, I also think that there are certain considered acts which still qualify as heroic.  For example, someone might think for quite a while before deciding to donate a vital internal organ to a neighbor's child, but that would not remove the heroism of the act.

On a closely related note, is there a point at which heroism becomes stupidity?  If a person pushes someone else out of the way of a train and is hit themself, when they could have simply shouted to alert the potential victim (who could have gotten out of the way in time), was that person being a hero or being a fool?  I think that in this case we could say they were being both.  They probably did not consider the possibility of saving the person in a less dangerous manner, so their actions were heroic, but ultimately unnecessary.  Their death would be a waste, but that would not decrease the heroism of the actions leading up to it.