[Avodah] defining torture

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Tue May 15 18:21:07 PDT 2012


On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 08:54:58PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> But any discussion of whether there's an issur on torture only makes
> sense in a situation where the issurim on hitting and causing pain don't
> apply....

Not really. We weren't asked to discuss if there were any ADDITIONAL
issurim involved in torture. We were asked "is torture ever allowed
in halakhah???" Taking issurim not unique to torture out of scope
is your own idea, and as you noted, reduces the question to something
uninteresting.

RCM and I have been trying to reopen the original question for most of
this thread. I have no idea why you're repeatedly insisting that the
only valid discussion is the uninteresting one.

To finally get this thread launched, if I may be so lucky...

To know when torture is ever allowed, one has to ask what reasons permit
causing pain to others without their permission. I don't know what
other issurim might apply, but this one does.

I already noted that while a consequentialist could assume that it's
okay to cause pain to one person to avoid similar pain (or more) to
another, halakhah's deontological bent means we actually need to discuss
it on a halachic level and not just compare tza'ar.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 38th day, which is
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