Imagine you are walking past a shallow pond on a warm day and see a small child playing next to it.
The difference between this and the “saving a drowning child” thought experiment is probably 6 or so orders of magnitude of difference in the benefit of wading into the pond[1], while the cost … portrayed as “laundry”, is maybe 2 orders of magnitude off. Ok, so, then, imagine there are ten thousand children who love seeing adults get wet in the pond. Maybe also add an aspect where they saw you coming and got their hopes up, and that you can see for miles around and there are no other adults coming this way.
(I would not use “ethics” here, but I would feel a strong pressure and would endorse giving into it, but would defend the legal right to refuse. The same goes for the drowning child version.)
The difference between this and the “saving a drowning child” thought experiment is probably 6 or so orders of magnitude of difference in the benefit of wading into the pond[1], while the cost … portrayed as “laundry”, is maybe 2 orders of magnitude off. Ok, so, then, imagine there are ten thousand children who love seeing adults get wet in the pond. Maybe also add an aspect where they saw you coming and got their hopes up, and that you can see for miles around and there are no other adults coming this way.
(I would not use “ethics” here, but I would feel a strong pressure and would endorse giving into it, but would defend the legal right to refuse. The same goes for the drowning child version.)
Valuing “intense momentary pleasure for the child” at $10 and the life at $10M. It’s probably vaguely the right order of magnitude.