Towards legal pragmatism: Breach of confidence and the right to privacy

Abstract

In How Fiction Works, literary critic James Wood compares literary fiction with moral philosophy. As Wood explains, while fiction and especially novels are concerned with the reality of human existence, there is a certain persuasive criticism of much modern moral philosophy that it ‘essentially wrote the messiness of the self out of moral discussion’. The critique is shared by philosopher Bernard Williams who argues that modern Kantian philosophers tend to view moral dilemmas as easily solved by identifying then elevating the correct ‘universal‘moral principle while in reality life may involve more than one possible moral stance and people who respond differently to moral choices, their deci..