I think I want to give (b) partial credit here in general. There may not be much practical difference between partial and full credit where the financial delta between a more altruistic job and a higher-salary job is high enough. But there are circumstances in which it might make a difference.
Without commenting on any specific person’s job or counterfactuals, I think it is often true that the person working a lower-paid but more meaningful job secures non-financial benefits not available from the maximum-salary job and/or avoids non-financial sacrifices associated with the maximum-salary job. Depending on the field, these could include lower stress, more free time, more pleasant colleagues, more warm fuzzies / psychological satisfaction, and so on. If Worker A earns 100 currency units doing psychologically meaningful, low to optimal stress work but similarly situated Worker B earns 200 units doing unpleasant work with little in the way of non-monetary benefits, treating the entire 100 units Worker A forewent as spent out of their resource budget on altruistic purposes does not strike a fair balance between Worker A and Worker B.
I think I want to give (b) partial credit here in general. There may not be much practical difference between partial and full credit where the financial delta between a more altruistic job and a higher-salary job is high enough. But there are circumstances in which it might make a difference.
Without commenting on any specific person’s job or counterfactuals, I think it is often true that the person working a lower-paid but more meaningful job secures non-financial benefits not available from the maximum-salary job and/or avoids non-financial sacrifices associated with the maximum-salary job. Depending on the field, these could include lower stress, more free time, more pleasant colleagues, more warm fuzzies / psychological satisfaction, and so on. If Worker A earns 100 currency units doing psychologically meaningful, low to optimal stress work but similarly situated Worker B earns 200 units doing unpleasant work with little in the way of non-monetary benefits, treating the entire 100 units Worker A forewent as spent out of their resource budget on altruistic purposes does not strike a fair balance between Worker A and Worker B.
Yeah this is fair