That's a false dichotomy. No society has ever been on any extreme, certainly not a livable one. While there are inviolable limits to what is morally acceptable

That's a false dichotomy. No society has ever been on any extreme, certainly not a livable one. While there are inviolable limits to what is morally acceptable, and things you should never do, you cannot decide everything beforehand because some things are highly contingent on circumstances. So this is a never-ending process of determining those things. It's called prudence.