It's a principle in western law that punishments be specified ahead of time so that a person could choose to break the law if they felt it was worthy. In such a

It's a principle in western law that punishments be specified ahead of time so that a person could choose to break the law if they felt it was worthy. In such a framework punishments cannot be so extreme that you would never consider breaking the law. IMO the dismay at this idea is coming from those who consider law as part of morality, in which case, it may be immoral to even develop a calculus for ignoring morality when the material returns are good enough.