The principle of humane punishment remains undefined yet treated as insuperable
Evidence
These elements are so necessary and yet so uncertain that it is they, as disturbing as ever and still associated in the same dubious relation, that one finds today whenever the problem of an economy of punishment is posed. It is as if the eighteenth century had opened up the crisis of this economy and, in order to resolve it, proposed the fundamental law that punishment must have ‘humanity’ as its ‘measure’, without any definitive meaning being given to this principle, which nevertheless is regarded as insuperable. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 127
Categorization
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does the unresolved definition of ‘humanity as measure’ play out in modern penal debates the reader may encounter elsewhere?
- XREF: connects to: Painless execution drugs are the logical terminus of non-corporal penality — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46; Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane; Humane punishment is really an economic regulation of power effects — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 150 (+2 more)
Related
- Humane punishment is really an economic regulation of power effects (similarity 0.89)
- Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain (similarity 0.83)
- Painless execution drugs are the logical terminus of non-corporal penality (similarity 0.81)
- The respectful ‘humanity’ of the criminal became the target of correction (similarity 0.80)
- The reformed penalty shifted its target from the body to subtler suffering (similarity 0.80)
- Penal reform sought not less punishment but more universal, deeper social control (similarity 0.79)
- Modern punishment targets the soul rather than the body (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane
#expands(0.85) - Humane punishment is really an economic regulation of power effects
#expands(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 150 - Coercive punishment requires a power that encloses the punished individual completely
#expands(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 208 - Cultural normativeness moderates but never eliminates corporal punishment’s harm
#complicates(0.72) — , The Rod and the Child, 6575