I’d flip it if my car were worth a million times the cost per life saved, and I think I’d (at least) say some harsh things to anyone who so much as hesitates to flip the switch.
The hypothetical here isn’t realistic unless you’re a billionaire. Here is a more realistic one: would you become an indentured servant for life in order to save the child? If your life time earning power is $5m, then becoming an indentured servent for life gets you less than 1⁄40 the way toward paying a million times the cost of saving a child.
Here is a more realistic one: would you become an indentured servant for life in order to save the child?
Or, not merely more realistic, but actually having real instances: would you throw your whole productive life into earning as much money as possible in order to give nearly all of it away to the cause of saving children?
The hypothetical here isn’t realistic unless you’re a billionaire. Here is a more realistic one: would you become an indentured servant for life in order to save the child? If your life time earning power is $5m, then becoming an indentured servent for life gets you less than 1⁄40 the way toward paying a million times the cost of saving a child.
Or, not merely more realistic, but actually having real instances: would you throw your whole productive life into earning as much money as possible in order to give nearly all of it away to the cause of saving children?
Right, that’s better. In that case, I wouldn’t say one has a moral obligation even to save the local child.