Autonomy and Why You Can “Never Let Me Go”

Abstract

Kazuo Ishiguro's book Never Let Me Go is a thoughtful and provocative exploration of what it means to be human. Drawing on insights from the hermeneutic-phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, I argue that the movement of Ishiguro's story can be understood in terms of actualising the human potential for autonomous action. Liberal theories take autonomy to be concerned with analytically and ethically isolatable social units directing their lives in accordance with self-interested preferences, arrived at by means of rational calculation. However, I argue that such theories are simplistic abstractions from our human-life world, distorting the fundamental embodied, embedded, and relational nature of autonomy. When we attend closely to our concrete, lived existence we see instead that autonomy is about responding appropriately to others with whom we share a world. As we follow the path of Ishiguro's central character Kathy H., we are shown how an awareness and acceptance of our existential finitude as precarious and fallible creatures is necessary for guiding such appropriate interactions. As Kathy grows and is affirmed into her life-world, which grounds and supports her Being, she moves from heteronomy to autonomy; from being moved by external laws to embodying those laws, thereby becoming autonomous. This is exemplified by her appropriation of the carer role, through which she responds in a fitting way to those with whom she shares her world, bearing the weight of and dwelling responsibly within our human condition.

The Ethical Grounds for the Best Interest of the Child

“…Through favorable encounters in which the child is consistently guided by signifi cant others, values associated with sharing, cooperation, respect, trust, and communal meanings are established, along with secure and healthy social bonds. 4 These relational facts mean that our ethical formation can be derailed in adverse social situations and debilitating interpersonal relationships. If confused, confl icting, or negative interactions become woven into a pattern of everyday activity that structures the possibilities open to a child, the coherence of self-world understanding can be threatened.…”

Bioethics and Literature: An Exciting Overlap

“…Through a via negativa we are again invited to contemplate the uniqueness of each human being and the fact that life is beautiful. Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Never Let Me Go, is submitted to an Heideggerian exploration by Lynne Bowyer (2014). What emerges is a nuanced re-conceptualisation of autonomy as an attentive and caring being-in-the-worldamong-others, based on a recognition of the fragility of life.…”

A experiência do envelhecer com deficiência física: uma abordagem fenomenológica

“…Assim, também no Brasil, a identidade pessoal e também social da PcD pode estar relacionada a um corpo improdutivo e tem nesses sinais externos um importante componente estigmatizador. Para Bowyer (2014), autonomia é também responder adequadamente aos outros com quem compartilhamos um mundo, ou seja, como seres autônomos, somos capazes de responder de forma adequada e sustentável a situações que encontramos, reconhecendo o peso de nossa situação existencial como fundamentalmente criaturas finitas e vulneráveis, vivendo precariamente a nossa existência.…”