Re: [asa] Torture

Well, then any punishment, including imprisonment, is "torture," because
social isolation can also be a form of "torture" under the UN standards.
The emotional pain of imprisonment is also excruciating.

With the punishment of flogging, the ethical issue isn't "torture," it's
whether the punishment is excessively cruel. The distinction potentially
makes an important difference, because "punishment" is a just reward for a
crime after appropriate judicial proof, while "torture" is presumptively
unjust because the victim receives no due process.

As to whether flogging is excessively cruel, I think we'd agree that in the
contemporary context flogging is never an appropriate punishment even if a
criminal offense has been proven. The Deuteronomic and Levitical criminal
laws concerning corporeal punishment, IMHO, are in this case descriptive and
accommodated to the ANE context rather than proscriptive.

On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 9:13 AM, huiyiing@juno.com <huiyiing@juno.com> wrote:

> That's punishment in the form of torture. Alright, we may differ in the
> use of terminology, but in both cases, excruciating pain is inflicted on the
> individual. Regarding the offense which the criminal is punished for in the
> context of the Old Testament, I wonder how that compares with allowing an
> entire city and its inhabitants to be bombed to ruins.
>
>
>
> > Here's a peripheral point. A form of torture was practised in the Old
> > Testament. It's found in Deuteronomy 25:1-3.
>
> That appears to be punishment, not torture.
>
> Burgy
>
>
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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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