Modern humane punishment rests on a Benthamite commensurability of suffering

Evidence

It is not Bentham’s apparent refusal to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary subjection to pain that should be noted here. It is the more interesting idea that subjective experiences of pain can be objectively compared. This idea is crucial for the modern understanding of “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in a cross-cultural context, although liberals today would strongly reject Bentham’s view regarding the occasional preferability of torture to imprisonment. For it is precisely some notion of comparability in suffering that makes of long years in prison (including solitary confinement) a “humane” punishment and of flogging an “inhumane” one, even though the experience of imprisonment and of flogging are qualitatively quite different. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 524 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

It is the more interesting idea that subjective experiences of pain can be objectively compared. This idea is crucial for the modern understanding of “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in a cross-cultural context, although liberals today would strongly reject Bentham’s view regarding the occasional preferability of torture to imprisonment. For it is precisely some notion of comparability in suffering that makes of long years in prison (including solitary confinement) a “humane” punishment and of flogging an “inhumane” one, even though the experience of imprisonment and of flogging are qualitatively quite different. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 524 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modern humane punishment rests on treating subjective suffering as objectively comparable. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 524; The secular cruelty standard depends on comparing incommensurable sufferings — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 524; Utilitarian consequentialism can justify killing by its aggregate social benefits — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1874 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern humane punishment rests on treating subjective suffering as objectively comparable. #corroborates (0.96) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 524
• The secular cruelty standard depends on comparing incommensurable sufferings #complicates (0.82) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 524