The concept of torture has expanded from physical pain to include cruelty.

Evidence

The category of torture is no longer limited to applications of physical pain: it now includes psychological coercion in which disorientation, isolation, and brainwashing are employed. Indeed “torture” in our day functions not only to denote behavior actually prohibited by law, but also desired to be so prohibited in accordance with changing concepts of “inhumane” treatment (for example, the public execution or flogging of criminals, and child abuse, as well as animal experiments, factory farming, and fox hunting). — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 563

Categorization

• DEFINE: Maps the historical expansion of ‘torture’ from a legal term for physical pain to a contested moral category covering cruelty more broadly.
• XREF: Ties to my prior notes on the shifting category boundaries of violence in liberal legality and animal ethics debates. — connects to: Enlightenment-era cruelty shifts from rulers onto the ruled.