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Rebecca L. Walker is the author of chapter 41, “Physicians and Punishment: Ethics beyond oaths and codes” in The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Punishment, ed. Jesper Ryberg.

Abstract: Despite orientation to goals that are in deep tension, medicine and state-sanctioned punishment have long cooperated. Involvement of physicians in some punishment practices has led to professional guidance aimed at reinforcing medical morality and eschewing such engagement. This chapter addresses the ethics of the intersection of medicine and state-sponsored punishment. It explicates tensions within the aims of medicine that help to make sense of why physicians sometimes participate in punishment and, in opposition to some guidance from professional ethics, emphasizes the significance of broader moral questions about various forms of punishment in determining what it is ethical for physicians to do by way of their involvement.