When considering things that won't likely affect me personally, I wonder if I'd be willing to suffer the consequences to pay for the reasoning. I imagine myself in the shoes of those that will be affected. This tends to be complicated.

Would I be willing to put my sons in that position: being innocent? That's easy, no.

Would I be willing to have someone guilty of harming my son go free? That's harder.

Would I be willing to go to prison for an innocent man? And I don't mean with the hope of going free. The understanding is, would I be willing to give up my life so that another would stay in prison?

I do this for a lot of stuff that has a moral complexity. Would I be willing to suffer for this outcome? Sometimes the answer comes easily: yes, I would. It forces me to think through the ramifications of what I'm asking others to do. It's not easy, because it forces me to come to terms with my moral desires and my practical desires. And all of this is really a mind game anyways, it's not real. It's speculative. I don't know how I would react if I was really put into a position.

Apologies, this wasn't directly related to the topic itself, but the post made me think of this.