Author:
YANG Wen, Ph. D Candidate, School of philosophy, Nanjing University.
Abstract:
Medieval and early modern punishments, especially the death penalty, involved significant amounts of physical torture, and these rituals were closely related to religious traditions. Due to the fact that enduring pain was seen as a way to eliminate sins, various forms of torture thus had religious significance. The doctrine of "justification by faith" during the Reformation period challenged this idea, arguing that artificially inflicting suffering, like all "Good Works", has no value for "salvation". This conceptual reversal changed the representation of physical pain in the Western world and had a profound impact on the system of the death penalty. Although it did not eliminate torture, it led to the gradual withdrawal of religious discourse from the stage of torture, promoting the refutation of torture by later Enlightenment thinkers on purely secular and utilitarian grounds.
Keywords:
Death penalty, Asceticism, Torture, Reformation, Humanization
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