Alvan A. Ikoku
Extract
Introduction
In 1853 Herman Melville published “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” his now most well-known piece of short fiction, which over a century and a half later we can certainly read as an illuminating dramatization of conscientious objection [1]. There are, of course, important differences between Melville’s approach to refusal and how we have come to discuss it in medical ethics. The story’s setting, for instance, is not clinical; the central exchanges are between the head of a law office and an employee who politely but insistently refuses to carry out his understood duties.
Ikoku AA. Refusal in “Bartleby, the Scrivener”: Narrative ethics and conscientious objection. Virtual Mentor. 2013;15(3):249-256. doi: 10.1001/virtualmentor.2013.15.3.imhl1-1303.