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Book
ReviewAutonomy,
Beneficence and Justice in Life WritingVulnerable subjects, ethics and life writing.
G. Thomas Couser, 2004. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; ISBN 08148863X,
256 pp., £10.95 paper
SAGE Publications, Inc.2005DOI: 10.1177/09675507050130020502
TerryMartin
University of Southampton
The
vulnerable subjects, who are the focus of this work, are vulnerable to harm
through the writings of others. Their vulnerability to misrepre- sentation
often arises through specific internal impairments that render them unaware
of how they are being represented and incapable of either consent or protest.
An example of such a vulnerable subject would be the novelist Iris Murdoch,
and the portrayal of her in the books (and film) by her husband John Bayley.
Other subjects may be vulnerable through external circumstance or situation,
and the ethical issue centres on betrayal of trust. The underlying
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issues
invariably concern competing values and interests. At the heart of many ethical
dilemmas are the competing values of truth and respect. The author is at pains
to point out that he has no agenda to `police' life writing in order to ensure
protection and respect for vulnerable subjects. Nevertheless his argument
leads to a more balanced position, where the interests of such subjects need
to be considered more carefully and to influence subsequent decisions about
what to exclude and what to include in published texts. Although, in his own
words, this is not a book about bioethics, the author draws upon key concepts
of this contemporary approach, such as the principles of autonomy, beneficence
and justice. By careful analysis of a range of different examples, he demonstrates
the complexity of the issues at stake, and how these principles might come
into conflict. The wide range of his examples is drawn mainly from North America,
but the author provides detailed contextual information so that a reader
unfa- miliar with them can appreciate the ethical issues at stake. The unusual
and atypical nature of his examples might suggest that the ethical issues
are themselves atypical. On the contrary, the issues are pervasive and insofar
as vulnerability is considered a matter of degree rather than kind, then
for that reason alone the book is to be thoroughly commended as an essential
text in any consideration of ethics and life writing. I found this to be a
challenging book in two senses. First, it makes intel- lectual demands upon
the reader, and secondly it challenges practice. Although never strident,
the author makes his case persuasively and insis- tently, and the integrity
he displays commands respect. He has, in a sense, made himself vulnerable
in making his own text public.