"It's unethical to ask people to perform an action which you know they would never agree to if it wasn't for an imbalance of power or financial pressure/incenti

"It's unethical to ask people to perform an action which you know they would never agree to if it wasn't for an imbalance of power or financial pressure/incentives." Under utilitarianism you need to compare it to the alternative. You can't say X is immoral if Y is the alternative and Y is worse than X. In many cases, X=terrible job, Y=nothing. Otherwise you're actively opposing someone's wellbeing. This is the fatal problem with these ad hoc ethical rules that aren't grounded in actual outcomes. Consider the reductio ad absurdum. Almost everyone has a job because of financial pressures. Even upper middle class people feel pressure to secure themselves for old age and unforeseen circumstances. Is almost every job unethical? If yes, then you're saying that our species functioning is unethical, which is an absurdity. If no, then you don't believe it yourself. "Harvey Weinstein" No because he violated two of the assumptions I laid out, making it unethical under utilitarianism. He often introduced it as a surprise after the business relationship started. And he engaged in what was effectively high pressure sales tactics which jeopardizes the ability for the person to decide whether it's truly in their best interests (this would be a form of compromised cognition, similar to mentally ill homeless people in the Bumfights example). A third thing: the attempts themselves were a sort of menacing assault which subtracted utility from the person, which they didn't agree to be subjected to upfront.