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The Ethics of Medical Involvement in Capital Punishment

A Philosophical Discussion

  • Book
  • © 2004

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Part of the book series: International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine (LIME, volume 18)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

The morality of capital punishment has been debated for a long time. This however has 1 not resulted in the settlement of the question either way. Philosophers are still divided. In this work I am not addressing the morality of capital punishment per se. My question is different but related. It is this. Whether or not capital punishment is morally right, is it moral or immoral for medical doctors to be involved in the practice? To deal with this question I start off in Chapter One delineating the sort of involvement the medical associations consider to be morally problematic for medical doctors in capital punishment. They make a distinction between what they call 2 “medicalisation” of and “involvement” in capital punishment, and argue that there is a moral distinction between the two. Whilst it is morally acceptable for doctors to be “involved” in capital punishment, according to the medical associations, it is immoral to medicalise the practice. I clarify this position and show what moral issues arise. I then suggest that there should not be a distinction between the two. The medical associations argue that the medicalisation of capital punishment, especially the use by medical doctors of lethal injection to execute condemned prisoners is immoral and therefore should be prohibited, because it involves doctors in doing what is against the aims of medicine.

Authors, Editors and Affiliations

  • Université de Montréal, Canada

    David N. Weisstub

  • University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Thomasine Kimbrough Kushner

  • University of Cape Town, South Africa

    Solly Benatar

  • University of Sydney, Australia

    Terry Carney

  • Universitet Aarhus, Denmark

    Uffe Juul Jensen

  • Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Gerrit K. Kimsma, Evert Leeuwen

  • Glasgow University Law School, Glasgow, UK

    Sheila Mclean

  • University of Toronto, Canada

    David Novak

  • Georgetown University, Washington, USA

    Edmund D. Pellegrino

  • Fondazione Lanza and University of Padua, Italy

    Dom Renzo Pegoraro

  • Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA

    Robyn Shapiro

  • New York University, New York, USA

    Lawrence Tancredi

  • University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana

    Joseph B. R. Gaie

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Ethics of Medical Involvement in Capital Punishment

  • Book Subtitle: A Philosophical Discussion

  • Authors: Joseph B. R. Gaie

  • Editors: David C. Thomasma, David N. Weisstub, Thomasine Kimbrough Kushner, Solly Benatar, Terry Carney, Uffe Juul Jensen, Gerrit K. Kimsma, Evert Leeuwen, Sheila Mclean, David Novak, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Dom Renzo Pegoraro, Robyn Shapiro, Lawrence Tancredi

  • Series Title: International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2539-4

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2004

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-1764-3Published: 29 February 2004

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-6494-3Published: 08 December 2010

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-2539-6Published: 11 April 2006

  • Series ISSN: 1567-8008

  • Series E-ISSN: 2351-955X

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 159

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Ethics, Political Philosophy

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