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Book Review: Caring and the Law

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorHelen Reece
DOI10.1177/0964663914523201a
Date01 June 2014
Published date01 June 2014
Subject MatterBook Reviews
SLS523201 275..290 278
Social & Legal Studies 23(2)
JONATHAN HERRING, Caring and the Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2013, pp. 352, ISBN
9781849461061, £30.00 (pbk).
It has become a standing joke between Jonathan Herring and me that we never agree on any-
thing. So it came as no surprise to me, and will come as no surprise to him, that I entirely
disagree with the fundamental point of his book Caring and the Law, namely that law should
be centrally concerned with caring. From the safe premise that caring is crucial, Herring
derives the shocking conclusion that caring should be the central principle of the law (p. 10).
His theme is that to date law has been overly concerned with individual rights and
interests – protecting the autonomy and independence of the ruggedly isolated abstract
individual, and insufficiently concerned with recognising the importance of caring – pro-
tecting the vulnerability and dependence of the connected relational subject. The law is
preoccupied with business and money, he writes, and pays inadequate attention to the
‘exhausted mother of the disabled child’ (p. 1). At his most eloquent, Herring claims,
‘Money and individual rights, while important, are a sandy foundation, but caring is the
rock on which society stands’ (p. 10).
But granted that caring is of central importance, it does not follow that caring should
be of central importance to the law. Such an approach makes sense only on one of two
assumptions. The first is that we see law as an unalloyed good, to be ushered into every
aspect and arena of social life. But the costs of extending law are legion: law may fuel
conflict, weaken spontaneous bonds and limit freedom, to mention a few. And of course,
as a first-rate scholar, Herring raises and rejects these objections. Herring laments that
study of the nappy changing table does not figure in most law degrees (p. 1), to which
I would add thank goodness. I wondered at times whether Herring was confusing the law
with a knight in shining armour.
The second assumption is...

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