[Avodah] torture in halacha???

[Zev Sero]

On 15/05/2012 2:09 PM, hankman wrote:
> CM responds:
> I thought that was the point of the kalvechomer, for cases such as these. You are mixing the english (legal term) term assualt with haka’a which of course are not the same. While these probably qualify for assault, they are  not haka’a, but they probably are tzar balei chayim.

Again, tzaar baalei chayim means hurting an animal for no purpose.
The moment you have a reason it's not assur.  Whereas hurting a person
is assur, with certain exceptions.  It only makes sense to discuss
torture in a case where it's already been established that force not
amounting to torture is allowed, and any such case will by definition
have a purpose, so the kal vachomer from tzaar baalei chayim will not
work.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon