PRIVACY FOSTERS MORAL AUTONOMY ESSENTIAL FOR DEMOCRACY

Ruth Gavison, Professor of Law, Hebrew University, PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF PRIVACY,

Ferdinand Schoeman, ed., 1984, p.369-70. (DRGCL/B1132)
Privacy is also essential to democratic government because it fosters and encourages the moral
autonomy of the citizen, a central requirement of a democracy. Part of the justification for majority rule
and the right to vote is the assumption that individuals should participate in political decisions by
forming judgements and expressing preferences. Thus, to the extent that privacy is important for
autonomy, it is important for democracy as well.

PRIVACY MAINTAINS THE INTEGRITY OF THE INTIMATE SPHERES OF LIFE
Ferdinand Schoeman, Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, PRIVACY AND SOCIAL
FREEDOM, 1992, p.157. (DRGCL/B1135)
Thus far we have discussed the crucial role diverse associations and associational ties have in
constructing social freedom and social agency. We can begin to think about a sphere of life by
identifying a sphere as defined by an associational tie. One important function of privacy is to help
maintain the integrity of different spheres of life. Privacy helps maintain both the integrity of intimate
spheres as against more public spheres and the integrity of various public spheres in relation to one
another. Privacy norms are significant in both connections, because maintaining the integrity of life
spheres requires that we have practices that presumptively preclude access to nonrelevant roles of
individuals, even when theses roles are themselves public.

PRIVACY UPHOLDS THE VALUES OF KANTIAN AUTONOMY
Patricia Boling, Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University, PRIVACY AND THE POLITICS OF
INTIMATE LIFE, 1996, p.108. (DRGCL/B1136)
Like Blackmun, Kaplan sees respect for privacy as a way of affirming the centrality of uncoerced
individual decision-making in important areas of human activity. In Kantian terms, morality requires
recognition of the autonomy of the person. Such recognition implies the right to participate in the
ethical life of a society in which each is free to join with others in creating the institutions necessary
for pursuing a good life. Recognizing the autonomy of the person means respecting the individuals
ability to define her identity independently through intimate sexual relationships with others, her
decisions to form a family, have children, and so on.

AUTONOMY IS THE BASIS OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
Joseph Kupfer, Professor of Philosophy, Iowa State, AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION,
1990, p.45. (DRGCL/B1137)
Autonomy is the basis for moral behavior and responsibility, in a word"moral agency. Without
autonomy individuals cannot cogently be held responsible for their conduct or deserve praise and
blame. People who are governed by external forces, are dependent on others, or who cant control
their own impulses lack moral responsibility. Autonomy is also essential to moral agency in the
deeper sense of self-reflection. As indicated in the previous chapter, self-consciously reflecting on
ones values and choosing the life we lead define a more complete autonomy. This more complete
autonomy, moreover, enhances the individuals moral agency. The more we scrutinize our values and
act in light of such scrutiny, the more moral agency we exhibit.

AUTONOMY IS MORE FUNDAMENTAL THAN FREEDOM OR WELFARE
Lawrence Haworth, Professor of Philosophy, University of Waterloo, AUTONOMY, 1986, p.6.
(DRGCL/B1138)
There is something to be said, however, for the view that of these three values"satisfaction,
freedom, and autonomy"autonomy is the most basic one. We need to ask under what conditions it
matters whether peoples preferences are satisfied. The utilitarian assumption that satisfying
preferences is a desideratum to which all else should give way is plausible only when qualified by the
stipulation that the preferences have been autonomously formed. Preferences that are but outbursts
of passion (or that merely express first-order desires), or those that are uncritically borrowed from
others, have no claim on us. Satisfying them makes an immediate contribution to welfare only when
neglecting to satisfy them would inflict suffering on those who hold the preferences. But it is evident
that if welfare gains only accompany satisfaction of autonomous preferences, then it is important that
people generally be capable of forming, and in fact characteristically do express, autonomous
preferences. To the extent autonomy is lacking, welfare gains are not possible"there is on utility
to maximize (chapter 10).

PRIVACY IS ESSENTIAL FOR AUTONOMY
Joseph Kupfer, Professor of Philosophy, Iowa State, AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION,
1990, p.6. (PDCL1182)
On the other hand, autonomy is promoted or limited, developed or truncated, by virtue of our
interactions with others. Privacy, for example, is essential to the development of the sort of self-
concept needed for autonomous living. In order for an individual to develop a conception of himself as
an independent originator of thought and action, he must enjoy periods of independence from
interference and observation.

PRIVACY VIOLATIONS SERIOUSLY INTERFERE WITH AUTONOMY
Robert Gerstein, Professor of Political Science, UCLA, PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF
PRIVACY, Ferdinand Schoeman, ed., 1984, p.267-8. (PDCL1183)
First of all, it is clear that anyone who intrudes uninvited on the intimacy of another person interferes
with his autonomy in a very serious way. It is prima facie wrong to observe a person against his will at
any time, because it violates his autonomous right to decide whether he will be observed or not. But
the wrong is far greater where the victim of the invasion was submerged in an intimate relationship
and therefore did not intend to be observed at all, even by himself. Not only has the enlargement of
his audience been forced upon him, but a fundamental change in the nature of his actions as well.

PRIVACY ALLOWS AUTONOMOUS EXCHANGE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Joseph Kupfer, Professor of Philosophy, Iowa State, AUTONOMY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION,
1990, p.145. (PDCL1184)
Belief that someone we care about returns that affection and concern is usually the basis for
voluntarily sharing information about ourselves. It is this voluntary, autonomous character of the
means by which others come into possession of personal information that really links intimacy with
privacy. Privacy insures the autonomous nature of transmission of this personal information. This
intimacy enables an opening to others, and opening which shapes who we are.

PRIVACY IS CRITICAL TO HUMAN AUTONOMY
Fred H. Cate, Professor and legal scholar, Brookings Institute, PRIVACY IN THE INFORMATION
AGE, 1997, p. 15 (MHBLUE1831)
Individuals and institutions alike require some degree of personal or organizational autonomy to
function: The most serious threat to the individual's autonomy is the possibility that someone may
penetrate the inner zone and learn his ultimate secrets, either by physical or psychological means.
This deliberate penetration of the Individual's protective shell, his psychological armor, would leave
him naked to ridicule and shame and would put him under the control of those who knew his secrets.'
This value, reminiscent of the understanding of privacy as autonomy itself; recognizes that privacy is
vital to the development of each individual. "Who can know what he thinks and feels if he never has
the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts and feelings?"

VIOLATION OF PRIVACY INCREASES SOCIAL TENSION AND SUICIDE RATES
Fred H. Cate, Professor and legal scholar, Brookings Institute, PRIVACY IN THE INFORMATION
AGE, 1997, p. 15 (MHBLUE1832)
Privacy is necessary for individuals because it provides an opportunity for emotional release-the
chance to be out of the public eye, to not be "on," and to express anger, frustration, grief, or other
strong emotion without fear of repercussion. "Such moments may come in solitude; in the intimacy of
family, peers, or woman-to-woman and man-to-man relaxation; in the anonymity of park or street; or
in a state of reserve while in a group." The consequences of denying opportunities for such privacy
can be severe, ranging from increased tension and improvident expression to suicide or mental
collapse.

PRIVACY IS CRITICAL TO SELF-AUTONOMY
Judith Wagner DeCew, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Clark University, IN PURSUIT OF
PRIVACY, 1997, p. 87-88 (MHBLUE1833)
In contrast to autonomy, which concerns the context in which one acts, I understand privacy to
involve the nature of one's actions, because privacy is concerned with the effects of one's actions
have on other persons in the specified group. Thus, an autonomous action may not always be a
private action (e.g, the President signing a bill into law.) Moreover, a private action may not always be
performed autonomously (e.g., a soldier, taking a shower tender orders of his sergeant, Is acting
privately with respect to the press corp.). In a culture that emphasizes conformity and stereotypical
forms of behavior, there may be few truly autonomous people. Nevertheless, to the extent that people
are autonomous at all, privacy helps to insure that autonomy. In this formulation, I deviate from the
position of scholars who believe that privacy attaches only to information and states of affairs in favor
of a position that includes self-regarding acts.

PRIVACY IS A PARAMOUNT CONDITION OF AN ACCEPTABLE HUMAN CONDITION
THE END OF PRIVACY, 1999, p. 7 (MHBLUE1834)
But the greatest threats-obscured in debates over sexual McCarthyism, media intrusion, and
technological snooping-go to the heart of our self-identity. Some commentators suggest that privacy
is the essence of being human; but, in fact, It is quite possible to be human without privacy. It is more
accurate to say that privacy is essential to being a free human being. As Justice Louis Brandeis
suggested more than a century ago, privacy-the right to be let alone-is the most valued, if not most
celebrated, right enjoyed by Americans. Neither the Founding Fathers of the eighteenth century nor
Brandeis of the nineteenth century' thought that privacy was optional. How much less so in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when others have the power literally to watch us through walls.

PRIVACY IS GROUNDED IN KANTIAN RESPECT FOR PERSONS
Jeffrey Johnson, Eastern Oregon State College, PUBLIC AFFAIRS QUARTERLY, July 1992, p.282.
(DRGCL/B1145)
Stanley Benn has articulated one of the most complete and intellectually satisfying defenses of the
value of privacy that is to be found in literature. The Kantian notion of respect for persons provides
the foundation: [A] general principle might be grounded on the more general principle of respect for
persons. By a person I understand a subject with consciousness for himself as an agent, one who is
capable of having projects, and assessing his achievements in relation to them. To conceive
someone as a person is to see him as actually or potentially a chooser. Included in these few lines
are a number of presuppositions about the nature of privacy, as well as what it is to be a person, why
personhood is so important, and why failure to respect a persons privacy amounts to such a serious
form of disrespect.

PRIVACY IS GROUNDED IN BASIC RIGHTS OF PERSONHOOD
Charles Fried, former Professor of Law, Harvard, PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF PRIVACY,
Ferdinand Schoeman, ed., 1984, p.206. (PDCL1185)
The view of morality upon which my conception of privacy rests is one which recognizes basic rights
in persons, rights to which are all entitled equally, by virtue of their status as persons. These rights
are subject to qualification only in order to ensure equal protection of the same rights in others. In this
sense, the view is Kantian,; it requires recognition of persons as ends, and forbids the overriding of
their most fundamental interests for the purpose of maximizing the happiness or welfare of all. It has
received contemporary exposition in the work of John Rawls, who"summing up the fundamental
interests of persons in the term liberty"has formulated the maxim that social institutions must be
framed so as to entitle each person to the maximum liberty compatible with a like liberty for all.

PRIVACY IS KEY TO THE SENSE OF SELF
Robert Murphy, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS
OF PRIVACY, Ferdinand Schoeman, ed., 1984, p.36. (DRGCL/B1139)
The above discussion takes us finally to the problem of the individual identity and the concept of the
self. Goffman has written eloquently on the person as a sacred object, a bearer of demeanor and a
recipient of deference, and argues that the individuals sense of worth and significance is threatened
by his vulnerability and penetrability. These sources of weakness arise, of course, out of the fact that
we are of necessity social beings and, of equal necessity, require some stable definition of ourselves
if we are to effectively interact with social others.

LACK OF PRIVACY UNDERMINES SELF-DISCOVERY AND CREATIVITY
Jeffrey Reiman, Professor of Philosophy, American University, SANTA CLARA COMPUTER AND
HIGH TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL, 1995, p.41-2. (DRGCL/B1140)
As the inner life that is subject to social convention grows, the still deeper inner life that is separate
from social convention contracts and, given little opportunity to develop, remains primitive. Likewise,
as more and more of your inner life is made sense of from without, the need to make your own sense
out of your inner life shrinks. You lose both the practice of making your own sense out of your
deepest and most puzzling longings, and the potential for self-discovery and creativity that lurk within
a rich inner life. Your inner emotional life is impoverished, and your capacity for evaluating and
shaping it is stunted.

CONTROL OVER PERSONAL INFORMATION IS VITAL FOR MEANINGFUL HUMAN LIFE
Martha Nussbaum, Professor of Law and Ethics, University of Chicago, BOSTON REVIEW, April/May
2000, p.42. (DRGCL/B1141)
But Americans should not need the law to tell them this: works of fiction coming out of India
prominently recognize the importance of secrets, and the sometimes disastrous effects of dragging
these into the light. Consider Arundhati Roys The God of Small Things, a widely read novel that
might be said to be about the value of privacy in that sense. To choose another regional culture,
many of Rabindranath Tagores stories and novels show the tragedy that ensues when the wrong
person gets hold of a bit of confidential information and uses it to damage someone he or she either
loves or hates. One could go on, but I wont, because it seems to me that there would be no human
beings and human life without secrets and therefore an interest in controlling access to personal
information.

DENIAL OF PRIVACY IS THE ULTIMATE ASSAULT ON SELF-RESPECT
Charles Fried, former Professor of Law, Harvard, PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF PRIVACY,
Ferdinand Schoeman, ed., 1984, p.212. (DRGCL/B1142)
Thus this most complete form of privacy is perhaps also the most basic, as it is necessary not only to
our freedom to define our relations to others but also to our freedom to define ourselves. To be
deprived of this control not only over what we do but over who we are is the ultimate assault on
liberty, personality, and self-respect.

PRIVACY IS CENTRAL TO BEING AN INDIVIDUAL
Ferdinand Schoeman, Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, PHILOSOPHICAL
DIMENSIONS OF PRIVACY, 1984, p.21. (DRGCL/B1143)
More than any other writer considered in this volume, Jeffrey Reiman, in his essay Privacy, Intimacy,
and Personhood [Chapter 13], regards it important to defend privacy exclusively in terms of
individualistic moral considerations, foregoing any reference to an individuals social needs or
dimensions. Reimans thesis is that privacy represents a social ritual by means of which an
individuals moral title to his own existence is conferred. Privacy is taken to be an essential part of a
social practice by which a society recognizes and communicates to the individual that his existence is
rightfully his own. Reiman speculates that a persons very sense of self as something morally
distinctive could neither develop nor survive outside of social institutions instructing and disposing
persons to recognize the private spheres of others.

LOSS OF PRIVACY DESTROYS INDIVIDUALITY
Edward Bloustein, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF
PRIVACY, Ferdinand Schoeman, ed., 1984, p.188. (DRGCL/B1144)
The man who is compelled to live every minute of his life among others and whose every need,
thought, desire, fancy or gratification is subject to public scrutiny, has been deprived of his
individuality and human dignity. Such an individual merges with the mass. His opinions, being public,
tend never to be different; his aspirations, being known, tend always to be conventionally accepted
ones; his feelings, being openly exhibited, tend to lose their quality of unique personal warmth and to
become the feelings of every man. Such being, although sentient, is fungible; he is not an individual.