Cruelty

The second conception is agent-subjective, in which “cruelty obtains only when the agent's deviant behavior is accompanied by the fault of character consisting in deriving personal delight from causing and witnessing suffering”.

[8] This conception is best understood under the presumption that punishment or other violence is a means to restore the offset in the cosmic order of the universe caused by wrongdoing.

According to the law, “ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity”, and this minimum is determined by “all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its physical or mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age, and state of health of the victim, etc.”[8] The fourth and final conception is the accumulation of all the prior conceptions: the victim-objective and agent-independent.

This conception “refers to severe violations of the respect, recognition, and care that the unconditional and inherent dignity of each and every individual command”.

[8] Beyond serving as an analytical framework, these four conceptions—the distinctive features of each as well as their collective evolution—reflect the reality that “the phenomenon of cruelty […] is a human-made problem that calls for preventive and corrective responses”.

[8] One criticism of the concept of cruelty suggests that it conflates disregard for others with hurting others for its own sake, arguing that the two are mutually exclusive: total disregard for what another being feels (be it a human or non-human) would be incompatible with deriving pleasure from hurting that being for its own sake, since caring about inflicting suffering would be incompatible with not caring.