Book Review: Towards a Rhetoric of Medical Law
| Author | Karen Richmond |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0964663918760885 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
punishment depends in part upon striving to achieve mutual recognition, then what role
can and should law play in this process? Some histories of liberal thought teach that the
tradition depends upon an absolute state that holds civil peace to be the highest value,
which suggests that pretensions of being founded on a shared will, moral culture or
community should simply be abandoned (Hunter, 2000). Might pursing some of the
aspirations of liberal law – such as upholding reciprocity – therefore require moving
away from the liberal paradigm altogether? Even assuming that liberal law is, or should
be, involved in seeking to create or enhance a community of mutual recognition, would
this entail responding to all types of offenders in the same way, or might there be scope
for attempting to rethink some of the distinctions between trustworthiness and danger-
ousness and prevention and punishment, informed by a deeper and richer knowledge of
their history? And could this be done without ‘essentializing ...notions of human
agency’ (p. 190)?
As this (non-exhaustive) list of questions indicates, The Preventive Turn in Criminal
Law is an immensely challenging and provocative book. It is a highly sophisticated
contribution to an important debate about the nature and justification of punishment in
an age when both the criminal law and its effects are coming under increased scrutiny.
Through a highly compelling and original exposition of the roots of our contemporary
condition, this book makes plain the urgent need to engage with its full complexity.
CHLOE
¨KENNEDY
University of Edinburgh, UK
References
Hunter I (2000) Is metaphysics a threat to liberal democracy? On Richard Rorty’s ‘The Priority of
Democracy to Philosophy’. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 95: 59.
del Mar M and Lobban M (2016) Law in Theory and History: New Essays on a Neglected
Dialogue. Bloomsbury.
Tomlins C (2012) After critical legal history: Scope, scale, structure. Annual Review of Law and
Social Science 8: 31.
JOHN HARRINGTON, Towards a Rhetoric of Medical Law. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, pp. 190,
ISBN: 978-1-138-85405-5, £85.00 (hbk).
Medical lawyers have long claimed that the constellation of ethical values which over-
arch their profession are the waypoints by which this body of law should chart its course.
However, the range and diversity of ethical perspectives is such that those who look
towards a normative firmament – in the hope of finding stability and coherence – might
easily find themselves adrift and carried in the direction of the prevailing wind.
John Harrington’s latest work, Towards a Rhetoric of Medical Law, therefore seeks to
provide a revisionary critique of law’s tendency to view ‘the great questions of modern
health care’ (introduction) as moral problems. This volume aims to challenge the
392 Social & Legal Studies 27(3)
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