Many of these calculations get more consistent if you bite just one fairly large bullet: sub-linear scaling (I generally go with logarithmic) of value. Saving a marginal person at the cost of ruining a marginal suit is a value comparison, and the value of both people and suits can vary pretty widely based on context.
The hardest part of this acceptance is that human lives are not infinite nor incomparable in value. I also recommend accepting that value is personal and relative (each agent has a different utility function, with different coefficients for the value of categories and individual others), but that may not be fully necessary to resolve the simple examples you’ve given so far.
Many of these calculations get more consistent if you bite just one fairly large bullet: sub-linear scaling (I generally go with logarithmic) of value. Saving a marginal person at the cost of ruining a marginal suit is a value comparison, and the value of both people and suits can vary pretty widely based on context.
The hardest part of this acceptance is that human lives are not infinite nor incomparable in value. I also recommend accepting that value is personal and relative (each agent has a different utility function, with different coefficients for the value of categories and individual others), but that may not be fully necessary to resolve the simple examples you’ve given so far.