Flouting the Demands of Justice? Physician Participation in Executions

Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 39 (5):505-522 (2014)
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Abstract

Those who argue against physician participation in state mandated executions tend to bracket the question of whether the death penalty should be abolished. I argue that these issues cannot be neatly separated. On the one hand, if justice demands that some criminals be executed for their crimes, then there can be no ethical or moral barrier to the participation of physicians in the execution process. On the other hand, I contend that the testimony and expertise of the medical community is a necessary component of any fruitful reflection on whether capital punishment is, in fact, just. Thus, although the justice of capital punishment may render it permissible for physicians to participate in the execution process, the experience of physicians also sheds important light on whether the death penalty is morally justified

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Adam Kadlac
Wake Forest University

References found in this work

A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition.John Rawls - 1999 - Harvard University Press.
Plato on knowledge and forms: selected essays.Gail Fine - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The impossibility of a morality internal to medicine.Robert M. Veatch - 2001 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 26 (6):621 – 642.
Justice.Harry Brighouse - 2005 - Philosophical Quarterly 55 (221):688-690.
Justice.Harry Brighouse - 2005 - Malden, MA: Polity.

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