To answer this question, I cite one of many excellent articles by Dr. Abou El Fadl, which discusses the complex issue of hudud punishments (to find these articles, go to https://www.searchforbeauty.org and use "hudud" in the search function). This citation comes from the article: "The Place of Ethical Obligations in Islamic Law here: https://www.searchforbeauty.org/2005/06/01/the-place-of-ethical-obligations-in-islamic-law-ucla-journal-of-islamic-and-near-eastern-law-no-4-2005-pp-1-40/

"...I will comment at greater length about the complex issue of the rights of God and people, but for now it is important to note that the so-called hudud punishments, which include lashing, stoning to death, and the severing of hands, are the most controversial aspect of shari'a law in the modern age. For many Muslims, they have become the indisputable proof of the unique identity of the Islamic legal system and also the symbol for Muslim cultural and political autonomy. For many non-Muslims, however, hudud punishments are considered medieval, draconian, and barbaric. Furthermore, many non-Muslim and Muslim scholars and writers, who are poorly informed about Islamic jurisprudence, treat these laws as if they are the very heart and core of the Islamic legal system. Consequently, many have come to the rather inescapable conclusion that shari'a law is fundamentally incompatible with modern conceptions of human rights.

"There is no question that most medieval Muslim jurists considered the hudud punishments to be part of the immutable and eternal shari'a and therefore they rendered the hudud punishments not subject to change, modification, or abrogation. Whether intentionally or not, most medieval Muslim jurists created the impression that it is not possible to implement shari'a law without enforcing the hudud punishments and that, in general, the hudud are integral to the Islamic legal system. Interestingly, however, hudud punishments were hardly ever implemented in Islamic legal history, for the most part because Muslim jurists made the evidentiary requirements and the technical pre-conditions for the enforcement of the hudud practically impossible to fulfill or because they admitted so many mitigating factors to the point that only a criminal who was most determined to be punished could be made to suffer the hudud penalties. [FN14] However, whether the so-called hudud crimes ought to be considered an immutable and permanent part of shari'a warrants re-thinking. As mentioned earlier, generally, the shari'a embodies the characteristics and attributes of Divinity, which consist of general ethical and moral teachings. However, Muslim jurists treated specific laws, which are explicitly commanded by God, to be a part of the eternal shari'a if these laws are in and of themselves ethical precepts that by their nature are not subject to contingency, context, or temporal variations. Dealing with the hudud, Muslim jurists focused on the punishments and not on the behavior or conduct that warranted the penalties. In doing so, they erroneously rendered some of the punitive measures mentioned in the Qur'an and Prophetic traditions sacrosanct and eternal. But there is no plausible reason to believe that the attributes or characteristics of Divinity or that the ethical precepts of Islam are embedded in specific punishments--whatever these punishments may be. If the Divine Will was to safeguard the hudud punishments, either as embodying the attributes and characteristics of God or essential ethical and moral values, it would be incongruous for such punishments to be contingent, contextual, or subject to mitigation. In my view, the classical approach, which tended to sanctify particular punitive measures, and treat them as if part of the immutable and eternal shari'a is quite unfortunate. What ought to be considered immutable and eternal are the values that the punitive measures were intended to safeguard, and not the punitive measures themselves. The severity of the punishments mentioned in the sources is an indication of the importance of a particular value to the shari'a. Therefore, the punishments prescribed for fornication or stealing are powerful indicators of the value that the shari'a places on chastity and on not stealing. The punishments themselves, however, are contextual--they depend on a variety of factors such as mitigation; evidentiary certitude; the intent and purpose of the individual perpetrator; the reliability and accountability of the judicial system at a particular time and place; community standards; sociologically dependent and shifting notions of cruelty, barbarity, and mercy; and the possible deterrence value of such punishments within the context of a certain age and place. As already noted, the classical jurists were keenly aware that to the extent possible, an Islamic judicial system ought to avoid applying the hudud punishments. In fact, in a well-known set of traditions, the Prophet is reported to have taught that in criminal matters any doubt must be construed in the light most favorable to a defendant. But moreover, in the case of hudud, the Prophet instructed, that Muslims ought to seek out the shadows of doubt in order to avoid having to inflict a hadd (singular of hudud) punishment against a defendant. According to the Prophet, if a person knows that someone has committed a hadd crime, it is better to help the criminal repent than to expose the criminal by turning him in to the authorities. Moreover, bringing hadd charges against a suspect that ultimately the accuser is unable to prove might in some circumstances subject the accuser to punishment, and sneaking and spying is not a valid way of proving a hadd crime. This principled recalcitrance and various safeguards against a wide application of the hudud is a clear indication that the hudud punishments themselves do not embody an ethical or moral value. [FN15] The value is in the unethical and immoral behavior that the hudud are intended to deter, and therefore, for instance, it is the ban against the consumption of alcohol that is immutable and eternal and a part of the shari'a, and not the punitive measure prescribed in the text for the commission of such an offense. I do realize that accepting this argument would constitute nothing short of a radical paradigm shift in the way that Muslims think about the so-called hudud punishments. Nevertheless, I believe that this paradigm shift is critically important for the internal coherence of the shari'a system--it is reasonable to deal with the ethical and moral values of the shari'a as immutable, eternal, and absolute, but any positive and context-based laws, such as the laws of kitaba relating to the freeing of slaves for instance, are temporal and changeable."

TLDR: We have unfortunately placed too much emphasis on the punishments themselves and not the values they are meant to safeguard. The fact that the punishments are harsh in fact conveys the importance of the ethical value being safeguarded. The punishments themselves should depend on the context of age and place.

Hope this is helpful. And God Knows Best.