[SilasX]

I don't want innocent people to be imprisoned. Should I oppose all imprisonment, since it will eventually happen?

(I think a better standard for categorically ruling out a tactic/punishment/procedure is "would I want this on my worst enemy/Adolf Hitler?")

[michaelmrose]

Why would you think a good standard would be a situation which would be the hardest imaginable for you to make a clear headed rational choice. The situation where you would be most tempted to choose petty emotions over real justice.

This is about the worst standard I can imagine.

[SilasX]

The standard wasn't "if I would want to do this to Hitler, let's do this in the general case".

The standard was "If I wouldn't be willing to use it, even against Hitler, it should be categorically disallowed."[1]

That is, if you consider it so brutal that you'd feel queasy about using it even against someone really bad, i.e. a case where you would most favor casting morals aside, then you know it's beyond the pale.

It may not make sense if you've never experienced something so bad that you said, "wow, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy", but I'm sure at least some fraction of the population has had that thought.

[1] If necessary, replace "categorically disallowed" with "off the table".

[michaelmrose]

Thanks for the clarification but its still a bad standard. The majority seemingly don't mind doing terrible things to people just because their skins the wrong color let alone their worst enemy. It only seems like a decent standard to you because you are relatively a better person.

[tedmc]

I think a better metric is would I wish my grandma be treated this way? A society should be judged by how it treats those that are the weakest.

[SilasX]

That doesn't work for the reason above: I don't want my grandma imprisoned, but zero imprisonment is also impractical. [1]

"A society is judged by how it treats its weakest", "would I want $GOOD_PERSON to fall victim to this" -- those sound nice, but don't translate into a practical metric for appropriately navigating real moral dilemmas.

[1] I know the lectures about the evils of mass incarceration; those don't prove that no one should be imprisoned.

[gervase]

Perhaps an extension, then: "Would I want this to happen to $LOVED_ONE, if they were convicted of $HEINOUS_CRIME?"

This may permit consideration of the relative social value of the punishment, alloyed with the emotional bias provided by the context.