Everyone had a scale in their hearts. It measured so-called righteousness, but when life of different quantity and qualities were placed on the opposite ends of the scale, the standards of measuring righteousness was different depending on the person.
A number of people would treat life as a cold, lifeless number. They would assign salvation to the larger number, while the smaller number would be sacrificed. They would rationally calculate and obtain a final result with the highest number, and stick strictly to it.
And there were others who assigned different weights to different lives. A person's utility in life would determine whether they would be sacrificed or saved. These people would emotionally determine the utility of a life before rationally abandoning the one with least utility.