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What's an example repugnant conclusion for the axiom "don't punish innocent people"?



Easy -- No one is ever punished for anything and crime gets to the point that society crumbles, because as humans we cannot enact a justice system that does not occasionally punish innocent people.

Slightly less easy, but closer to current reality: For "don't knowingly punish innocent people" -- enact a justice system that is terrible at fact finding (or has gross bureaucratic and procedural inefficiencies), so that you punish a lot of innocent people but never do so knowingly.

Easy again: For "don't punish innocent people, knowingly or otherwise -- you have no criminal justice system that is workable within these constraints in the real world.


That doesn't constitute a framework for answering "who do you punish" or "how do you punish them", so it's not relevant to my assertion.

It is a popular secondary/tertiary/N-ary axiom, though, as demonstrated in the article.




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