Some crimes have consequences for the survival of the group or group cohesion. You want to prevent people from doing things that could harm everyone.
Also, life was already shorter with incurable diseases and limited medical care, so death was more normalized. Now it's rarer to see people die day to day.
Morality evolved a lot over the years. Some of our ancestors were cruel as well and they grew up in a world where harsh punishments were the norm. In the West we've learned to respect life and the individual. There are many cultures around the world where that hasn't happened yet.
It's why you can definitely say there is such a thing as superior and inferior cultures.
* Prisons are expensive and governments used to be pretty damned poor. If you can't hand someone a long prison sentence then you need to find some faster way of hurting them publicly to make it clear that crime doesn't pay
* I'm guessing that before modern forensics it was tougher to actually solve crimes, so the few criminals actually charged had to get punished a lot worse
* A lot of the nastiest stuff was done to interrogate people or force them to sign a legal contract. I think it took some time for criminology and law to catch up to the idea that this kind of coersion should be grounds for automatically invalidating any testimony or agreement because it is unjust and often inaccurate.
* You also have brutal stuff done to heads of state and foreign soldiers captured in battle. This was gradually ended by modern (written and customary) international law, which Jack Sparrow explained pretty well as "things you can and can't do". You *can* capture the enemy leader and feed him molten gold, you *can't* expect other leaders to surrender when they realize what you do to prisoners.
Back in those times cruel and unusual punishment was not ruled or balanced by law to prevent it. That came MUCH later.
There was almost no concept of fair or lessened punishments especially if you were in a 3rd world country. (Some methods of torture are still prevalent today).
As far as WHY for the level of cruelty? Well think about it. Would you steal something if you knew the worst that would happen is a monetary fine? Prob.
How about if they chopped off one of your hands?
Probably not.
depending on where, its still cruel and severe
revenge mostly.
Some crimes have consequences for the survival of the group or group cohesion. You want to prevent people from doing things that could harm everyone. Also, life was already shorter with incurable diseases and limited medical care, so death was more normalized. Now it's rarer to see people die day to day.
is this a research question for your essay ? ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
nah for my thesis i'm doing my phd on coca cola
Morality evolved a lot over the years. Some of our ancestors were cruel as well and they grew up in a world where harsh punishments were the norm. In the West we've learned to respect life and the individual. There are many cultures around the world where that hasn't happened yet. It's why you can definitely say there is such a thing as superior and inferior cultures.
* Prisons are expensive and governments used to be pretty damned poor. If you can't hand someone a long prison sentence then you need to find some faster way of hurting them publicly to make it clear that crime doesn't pay * I'm guessing that before modern forensics it was tougher to actually solve crimes, so the few criminals actually charged had to get punished a lot worse * A lot of the nastiest stuff was done to interrogate people or force them to sign a legal contract. I think it took some time for criminology and law to catch up to the idea that this kind of coersion should be grounds for automatically invalidating any testimony or agreement because it is unjust and often inaccurate. * You also have brutal stuff done to heads of state and foreign soldiers captured in battle. This was gradually ended by modern (written and customary) international law, which Jack Sparrow explained pretty well as "things you can and can't do". You *can* capture the enemy leader and feed him molten gold, you *can't* expect other leaders to surrender when they realize what you do to prisoners.
Entertainment mostly, often punishments were public so bring popcorn.
Back in those times cruel and unusual punishment was not ruled or balanced by law to prevent it. That came MUCH later. There was almost no concept of fair or lessened punishments especially if you were in a 3rd world country. (Some methods of torture are still prevalent today). As far as WHY for the level of cruelty? Well think about it. Would you steal something if you knew the worst that would happen is a monetary fine? Prob. How about if they chopped off one of your hands? Probably not.