The literal form of lex talionis is that the criminal deserves in punishment the same harm that the crime caused. This is not a popular position even with retributivists. The retributivist seeks to inflict on the offender the nearest morally permissible form of punishment to the act the offender committed. This is the nearest form of lex talionis. Some retributivists have tried to understand punishment as taking back the unfair advantage the criminal gets from the crime rather than as returning something like the harm done. The harm a crime does plays no part in the assignment of penalties. The use of torture cannot be justified because it is not on the list of available penalties and it is inhumane. A penalty is inhumane when use of that penalty on anyone shocks the general public. Shock is morally indifferent where humaneness seems to be morally important. The connection between shock and morality is if someone is treated in a way that degrades him or her. A shared way of life forges a standard of humaneness. Death by injection is more like a hospital death than hanging, gassing, or electrocution. Early death is not rare enough in this country to make the death penalty as shocking as it needs to be to be inhumane. If the death penalty is the only penalty that is available and more severe than life imprisonment, then the death penalty is the only way to distinguish aggravated multiple murder from lesser forms of multiple murder. There is a retributive justification to use death as a penalty because of the greater criminal punishment of aggravated multiple murder. 10 notes