No. It's what is, not how we justify it. An Islamic state believes its laws are grounded in the absolute. We believe that there are self evident truths and rights, derived from an unnamed Creator, that we're born with. None of us can objectively demonstrate the truth of our propositions.
You don't mean that. You mean if I loose my hold on a claim of absolute truth I have no more right than the next fellow. Of course at that point I have as much right as any fellow and no inherent obligation to honor the wishes of any other.
No, which is why you should either quote me or not speak for me. What I wrote was, "The punishment advanced is the least cruel infringement upon right that we can envision while still carrying the punitive weight of social/legal censure." I'm explaining something to you. I'm not originating it.
Our law has boundaries for what can be done punishing in the name of the state and that it doesn't adopt an eye for an eye as the operating principle. We use means aimed at reformation and reflection, as well as punishment in the degree of impairment of rights and absent state sanctioned torture. If that disappoints our sense of justice then I'd suggest you examine the why of it.
You're entitled. It's a long argument with a lot of facets. It isn't, however, more than tangential to my point and it deserves more than a sidebar.
I am going to make things simple by answering all of this with the following:
As so often seems to happen when you and I converse, I have asked a very broad question: could, in principle, the law permit a husband to beat his spouse for such and such reasons?
You have, reasonably or unreasonably, answered "no," and you have justified yourself by appealing to US legal principles. Fair enough.
But that answer doesn't really get at my question. Granted that the law says what it does, and granted that the the US has the faulty legal principles that it does (and faulty they must be, since they are based on modern political philosophy (*cough*Locke*cough*)), could the law and the legal principles be different and still be just?
That is a question that you cannot answer as a black letter lawyer.
You will, of course, appeal to the modern conception of "rights," and I'll dismiss them offhand as modern innovations.
Do you have anything else?
And even more importantly, it doesn't get to the real root of what I'm after.
What does the woman deserve? What punishment is proportionate to the injustice she has committed against her husband and against the State? Do you think that, abstractly speaking, and apart from any consideration of modern Western law, death is not and cannot be proportionate to her crime?
But of course, as a Christian, you are not entitled to say that. You must say otherwise.
It's a prima facie case that someone wronged should not be judge and jury. I'm more concerned with the operating principle than whether or not you can fashion a particular hypothetical to meet your ends.
I'm unwilling to admit the principle universally speaking. The reason you wouldn't want the offended party as judge and jury is because his partiality in the case would prevent him from treating the other person fairly. However, two points must be noted here:
1. There is no question about the matter of fact.
2. If his "natural" inclination, given his partial mindset, is precisely in accord with what the offender deserves, then there is simply no possibility of him going astray.
Do you fear that he'll beat her too much? Too harshly? But the assumption under which we are working is that she deserves to die a painful death by being beaten.
Do you realize what the mitigation actually was? An aberrant mental state. It's not a stamp of approval on the behavior.
There's a world of difference between recognizing that in a moment a man or woman may be overwhelmed and act in an unpremeditated rage, for which they will receive a reduced sentence of incarceration, and sustaining the notion that the still illegal and punishable action is a good idea.
People naturally become angry when they perceive that they have become the victim of an injustice. The perception of a greater injustice, the greater the anger. If the State recognizes that adultery evokes sufficient anger/rage sufficient to cause "an aberrant mental state," in particular, of the kill-y variety, it thereby recognizes the immense injustice done by the adulteress...injustice which, at least in principle, could merit death, in fact.
Rather, sex isn't intrinsically evil. Rape is. Beating someone isn't intrinsically evil. Battery is.
Let us assume that you are correct. Then wherein lies your objection? I say not that a batterer should be battered, but that the State may flog him (i.e., beat/strike/whip, etc. him as punishment for crime).
No idea what you mean by that.
The State and the individual are two different things. The State has care over the whole political society, works for the good of the whole, the maintenance of justice with respect to the whole, has authority over the whole, and has a right of vengeance for the sake of justice.
The individual? Not so much.
The State and the individual aren't morally permitted to do the same kinds of things.
Not really. The modern notion of right is mostly about including the woman, though men have been forbidden to act certain ways toward their wives in antiquity and Christianity has some fairly strong things to say about how we are to behave. Ways inconsistent with berating and degrading and treating a wife as property.
1. So according to Christianity, it's not true that "a woman's body is not her own, but is her husbands," huh? Is that what you are saying?
2. That's not the modern notion of right. The modern notion of right is: "Here is x, y and z to which I am entitled. It's up to you to prove that I can't do so and so." The ancient notion of right is justice.
You'll tell me that a woman has a right to bodily integrity, and this precludes the possibility of her being beaten by her husband.
I'll tell you that the woman is guilty of a grave injustice, and all such people have an objective right to receive punishment proportionate to their crimes.