When a society treats certain jobs as dishonorable, the disgrace sticks to the worker's family and is inherited along with the trade. The deepest goal of such a person may be less to succeed in the work than to free their children from it.
Official punishment keeps its authority only if the person carrying it out seems swift, steady and free of personal cruelty. A skilled, reliable executioner stood for the justice system itself, while a botched or spiteful killing made the state look arbitrary.
Someone trapped in a shameful trade can push back against the stigma by living more strictly than respectable people do. Avoiding drink, gambling and fighting, and holding high professional standards, became a way to claim the honor society refused to give.
A person can routinely inflict pain as their job and still keep a real commitment to fairness, forgiveness and compassion. Seeing the punishment as rightful, set against random cruelty in the world, can let a believer make peace between a bloody job and a deep faith.