ORI GI NAL PAPER

Self-exposure and exposure of the self: informational privacy

and the presentation of identity
David W. Shoemaker
Published online: 3 April 2009
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Keywords Identity Information technology
Data mining Autonomy Informational privacy
Privacy in public Self-esteem
What is targeting in the long term? Youre getting content about things
and messaging about things that are spot-on to who you are.
Michael Galgon, Microsofts chief advertising strategist
1
The alleged right to privacy has increasingly come to be
about informational privacy, especially in light of persis-
tent technological breakthroughs. The amount of
information capable of being known about each of us is by
now familiar, yet remains staggering. Whenever we use our
computers, show a discount card at the supermarket, order
a pizza, apply for a loan or job, use a bank or credit card, or
engage in a host of other activities, multiple bits of our
personal data are collected, collated, distributed, and
stored. This state of affairs strikes many as cause for
concern, even alarm. But getting clear on the nature of this
threat is quite elusive. That there is a zone of informational
privacy, in some sense and of some sort, seems uncontro-
versial. But of what sense and of what sort? Further, why
think we might have a right to informational privacy, such
that a breach of that zone would be wrongful?
Several have tried to make the case that a threat to
informational privacy is a threat to our personal identity.
2
It
is difcult to articulate the precise nature of this connec-
tion, however. Here is one quite literal attempt:
[I]nformational privacy requires [a] radical re-
interpretation, achieved by considering each per-
son as constituted by his or her information, and
hence by understanding a breach of ones informa-
tional privacy as a form of aggression towards ones
personal identity.
3
Surely this is metaphor run wild. If Im really consti-
tuted by my information, which is essentially like software,
then gathering my information is just a matter of copying it,
so perhaps rather than being alarmed by the practice,
thinking of it as an aggression on my identity, I should be
attered by it, thinking of it as sharing my identity
sharing mewith the rest of the world, and how could that
be wrong? Seriously, though, we cannot take the phrase
identity theft literally.
4
At any rate, if breaches of informational privacy dont
steal me (or even clone me), there nevertheless do seem
to be identity-affecting worries we might have about them.
After all, if I do have a protected zone of private
D. W. Shoemaker (&)
Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University,
Bowling Green, OH 43403-0216, USA
e-mail: dshoema@bgsu.edu
1
From an article in the Toledo Blade called Snoops Dig Deeper into
Web Habits, March 10, 2008; reprinted from the New York Times.
2
Such authors include Michelfelder (2001), Parker (2002, esp.
p. 103), and Robison (1997). While not about informational privacy
per se, Reiman (1976) also tries to connect privacy in general with
identity.
3
Floridi (2005).
4
This point also reveals why illegal le sharing (of music and lms,
e.g.) isnt a case of straightforward theft either. After all, its not as
though the information has been taken from the owner, leaving him
suddenly without it. Rather, its a case of unauthorized duplication of
information still in the owners possession, so the theft is of the prots
the owner would otherwise have had if the information had been
purchased legally. Of course, theres no such analogous theft
occurring in breaches of informational privacy, given that the
breached individuals arent for sale. Thanks to Steve Wall for
discussion on this point.
1 3
Ethics Inf Technol (2010) 12:315
DOI 10.1007/s10676-009-9186-x
information, consisting in information about meinfor-
mation about my identity, in other wordsthen a violation
of that protected zone (whatever that might consist in)
should obviously have an effect of some sort on my
identity. But these ideas are terribly vague. It is my aim in
this paper to make clearer sense of them.
My overall thesis is that the relevant zone wanting
protection consists in information about what I will call
ones self-identity, the subset of ones properties consti-
tuting ones core self and providing an answer to the
question of who one really is. The reason for protection
against breaches of this zone is that they undermine a
certain aspect of ones autonomy, namely, ones ability to
manage the public presentation of that self-identity. I
begin, however, with a series of brief background discus-
sions, about the nature of informational privacy generally,
the threats to it from new technologies, and the serious
puzzles they raise about the kind of public privacy at
stake. At that point, because determining the relevant
conception of self-identity is the real key to the argument, I
will turn to a more detailed discussion of the strengths and
weaknesses of various possible conceptions before settling
on what I take to be the most plausible. I will then show
how this conception best accounts for the concerns, puz-
zles, and values at stake.
Theories of informational privacy
The concept of privacy has evolved signicantly over the
years. Initially, for example, a concern for privacy was a
concern primarily about intrusion. Later it was primarily
about interference in decision-making. Now it is primarily
about others access or exposure to ones personal infor-
mation, or informational privacy.
5
But what does this sort
of privacy consist in? What does it mean to have it? And
what constitutes a wrongful breach of it? I will here briey
discuss three leading theories of privacy and privacy rights
as they pertain specically to informational privacy.
The rst theory about the nature of informational pri-
vacy itself is the control theory, which maintains that one
has informational privacy to the extent one has control over
some zone of personal information.
6
Although there is
vagueness in such an account (e.g., whats the relevant
zone, what does control consist in, and how much control
should one plausibly have?), we may here simply assume
that what matters is the extent to which one has control
over whether or not to reveal ones personal information.
Herman Tavani points out a worry about this theory,
therefore, that it seems possible to lack privacy even
though one maintains maximal control over the revelation
of such information. Suppose for example that I decide to
live my life as an open book, to reveal everything about
myself to any interested partyperhaps I post all my
personal information on a website and then also have web
cameras installed in every room of my house and have
web-cameramen follow me around outside the house. Here
it seems I lack privacy altogether, despite the fact that I had
complete control over whether or not to reveal my personal
information.
7
This criticism seems unfair, however, given that a
control theorist could easily say that ones privacy ranges
over a specic domain of generally unrevealed informa-
tion, and one has privacy to the extent one exercises control
over access to that domain. Consequently, if there is simply
no unrevealed personal information left over which one
could exercise control, one would have no privacy left
either, and this interpretation provides the right way to
address Tavanis purported counterexample: one had con-
trol over whether or not to reveal ones personal
informationones zone of privacybut when one exer-
cised that control and revealed it all, ones privacy from
then on was indeed completely lost. There was just no
information left over which one could exercise access
control, so one no longer had any privacy. Nevertheless,
the problem of vagueness still hovers over the control
theory, so for it to be plausibly adopted and applied, it
would need clearly to address what specically counts as
the relevant zone of personal information (and why), as
well as the extent of the control required (after all, surely
one could never have complete control over every bit of
information about oneself).
8
Worries of this kind have motivated some to adopt a
different general theory of privacy known as the limitation
theory, which maintains that one has informational privacy
to the extent that information about oneself is limited or
restricted in certain contexts.
9
In other words, the domain
of information to which others have limited or no access
simply constitutes ones zone of privacy. An important
worry about this theory, though, is that it fails to appreciate
or even recognize the necessity of control in constructing
this zone, for often Im the one who grants or denies access
to others to enter into it.
10
That is, it seems clear that I can
continue to have privacy sometimes even when certain
5
Tavani (2007, pp. 67).
6
Those who have advocated a version of the control theory of
privacy (in general) over the years include Fried (1990), Miller
(1971), Westin (1967), Rachels (1975), Parent (1983), and Beardsley
(1971).
7
Tavani (2007, p. 8).
8
Tavani (1999b, p. 267).
9
Tavani (2007, p. 9). For advocates of the view, see Gavison (1980)
and Allen (1988).
10
Tavani (1999b, p. 267; 2007, p. 9).
4 D. W. Shoemaker
1 3
others have access to my personal information if Im the
one who has granted that access, but there doesnt seem
room for this possibility on the limitation theory. In addi-
tion, an implication of the theory is that the greater the
extent to which personal information is restricted, the
greater my privacy, but it seems odd to say that I have
maximal privacy when Im a castaway on a deserted island.
The alleged problems with both the control and the
limitation theories have motivated a third general theory
combining the virtues of the rst two into a hybrid account,
a theory called the Restricted Access/Limited Control the-
ory (RALC), developed by Moor and Tavani in a series of
singly and jointly authored papers.
11
On this view, one has
privacy to the extent one is protected from intrusion and
information access by others in the context of a situa-
tion,
12
where situation is deliberately left vague. In
presenting this theory, they make several important dis-
tinctions. First, they distinguish between the condition of
privacy and the right of privacy, the absences of which are,
respectively, a loss and a violation. When one is in fact not
protected from the relevant intrusion and information
access, one lacks privacy, and where one had such pro-
tection before, one has lost privacy. When there is in
addition a normconventional, legal, or ethicalthat one
ought to be protected in such contexts, one has a right of
privacy in that context, and so if one is not therein pro-
tected from intrusion and access, ones right to privacy has
been violated.
13
So, for example, a zone of normative
privacy has been constructed around ones medical infor-
mation: one ought to be protected from certain people
outside ones medical circle accessing that information,
and when such a breach occurs, ones right to privacy has
been violated.
Notice, then, that control doesnt play a role in the
concept of privacy in and of itself. Instead, privacy just
consists in there being a normative zone limiting access to
information in certain contexts. Nevertheless, for Moor and
Tavani, limited control does play a crucial role in the
justication of these normative zones. After all, what
warrants construction of such a zone around ones medical
information? The answer is that people need some limited
amount of control over whom they associate with, what
jobs they hold, and what insurance plans they select,
14
and so limiting the access that people outside ones medical
circle have to ones medical information, say, addresses
that need. Limitednot absolutecontrol is also impor-
tant with respect to the management of ones personal
information. For example, one may waive restrictions on
informational access to certain other people, allowing them
access without it constituting a breach of privacy.
15
Of these three theories of privacy, I believe the control
theory is the least problematic. We have already seen some
of the difculties of the limitation theory. There are dif-
culties as well with RALC, although it will take discussion
of an important puzzle to appreciate just what they are.
The puzzle of privacy in public
The puzzle, introduced and discussed by Helen Nissen-
baum, is that of privacy in public.
16
The cases Nissenbaum
asks us to consider here are compelling: public surveillance
(e.g., facial recognition scanning at the Super Bowl); the
gathering and storing of information at various retailers;
public access to birth and marriage records, as well as to
various licenses; and the storage of ones online prefer-
ences and information on databases, which is then
harvested by secondary sources who deploy algorithms to it
in order to unearth patterns and relationships, which were
previously unknown, and to use this new information,
i.e., new facts and relationships in the data to make deci-
sions and forecasts.
17
This last is known as data
mining, and its the practice on which Ill focus.
The puzzle, then, is this: data mining draws from pub-
licly available bits of information, indeed, bits that are
willingly shared. Nevertheless, people launch vitriolic
objections to data mining, the collection and patterning of
those bits, claiming that it undermines their privacy inter-
ests, perhaps even violates their privacy rights. But how
can we make sense of such an objection in light of the
public nature of the information mined?
18
Nissenbaum believes there is a genuine privacy interest
in such cases, but she also recognizes that it is difcult to
construct a justicatory framework for it. Most general
accounts of privacy have a blind spot regarding privacy in
public, and its easy to see why. The publicly available
information about us is often viewed as not very sensitive
or intimate, and so as innocuous as it is, any claim to
privacy with respect to it will be easily outweighed by
11
Moor (1990, 1997), Tavani and Moor (2001), and Tavani (2007,
pp. 913).
12
Tavani (2007, p. 12).
13
Ibid., p. 10.
14
Ibid., p. 12.
15
Ibid.
16
See Nissenbaum (1997, 1998).
17
Tavani (1999a, p. 137).
18
Nissenbaum discusses the case of Lotus Marketplace: Households,
which involved a joint effort in 1990 by Lotus Development
Corporation and Equifax Inc. to produce a database containing
personal information (available in public records) about the lifestyles
and spending habits of 120 million people, and then sell it on
CD-ROM to marketers. There were approximately 30,000 letters of
protest, and in 1991 the companies announced they were abandoning
the project. See Nissenbaum (1998, pp. 564565).
Self-exposure and exposure of the self 5
1 3
virtually any competing interest. Indeed, once youve
exposed that information, you unreasonably restrict the
freedom of others when you cry privacy. If youre wearing
an ugly hat in public and I see it, what reasonable claim
could you possibly have on me not to talk about its ugliness
to my friends?
19
And yet this seems to be precisely whats
going on when people object to data mining. What might
justify this response?
There are, of course, purely instrumental worries that
may be relevant. For example, I may object to peoples
having access to my banking or credit card information,
precisely because of the harm they may cause me in using
that information to bad ends, e.g., so-called identity theft.
But this isnt the sort of complaint that seems to be at issue
here, which is allegedly an objection explicitly to the
breach of privacy involved, an objection directed to col-
lection and patterning of the information in and of itself,
and not to the immoral or annoying uses that might be
made of it.
Nissenbaum offers two considerations in working out a
justication for the objection. First, what happens in data
mining is a (perhaps objectionable) violation of contextual
integrity. That is, the information has been willingly
released into one context, with norms attached for appro-
priate handling and exchange, but it is now being gathered
and patterned in a very different context. So just because
information has been willingly exposed, that doesnt mean
its up for grabs when divorced from the context of its
original exposure.
20
Second, while it may be true that bits
and pieces of personal information arent all that sensitive,
that doesnt mean that certain collections or patterns of
information arent capable of exposing people quite pro-
foundly.
21
And insofar as this sort of public exposure is
objectionable, one may have a legitimate privacy interest in
such publicly available information.
Neither consideration does enough to help us out,
however. With regard to the rst point, much more needs to
be said about the nature of the various contexts in question.
For instance, what makes the relevant norms in the two
contexts so different, whats the source of our epistemic
condence that they are so different, and why think con-
textual integrity is a relevant ground for objection anyway?
With regard to the second point, how precisely are people
being exposed, and exposed profoundly, by the pat-
terning of their public information, and in what respects is
this exposure objectionable?
Furthermore, while the considerations Nissenbaum
gives may still point (rather vaguely) in the direction of a
possible justication for a right to informational privacy,
they fall short of an actual justication until a connection is
made to the key values at stake. Nissenbaum suggests a
version of the control theory, that to have informational
privacy is to have control over how one lives ones life, and
this sort of control is among the conditions for a free
society, and so enhances peoples capacity to function as
autonomous, creative, free agents.
22
This sounds vaguely
important but the key word once again is vaguely. How
exactly does my web-based prole of you interfere with
your autonomy or creativity? Youre still able to do
whatever you want, to determine your own behavior, and
how you go about doing so is still entirely up to you.
Indeed, this connection between violations of informational
privacy and setbacks to autonomy is repeatedly trotted out
in the literature, with equally vague specications of pre-
cisely what the connection is.
23
Threats to autonomy
certainly sound scary, but its utterly unclear just why and
how violations of informational privacy constitute such
threats, and thus utterly unclear just why we should be so
scared of them. Nissenbaums answer to the puzzle of
privacy in public, while suggestive, is far too vague to be of
service.
Tavani explicitly suggests that his and Moors RALC
theory gains in plausibility because of the way it deals with
the puzzle of privacy in public, but his results are, unfor-
tunately, just as vague as Nissenbaums. The key to their
theory is determining whether or not there should be a
declaration of normative privacy regarding this sort of
publicly available information. RALC is, after all, context
sensitive, and its advocates maintain that it is always the
situation or the zone, not the kind of information itself, that
is used in determining whether information should be
normatively protected.
24
Consequently, Tavani appeals to
a publicity principle as relevant in cases of data mining, a
principle maintaining that all norms governing personal
information should be known to and understood by all
affected parties. With this condition in place, the various
parties would thereby be in a position to determine whether
or not we are in a normatively private situation as we troll
the web, and if so, it could then be determined to be a
situation subject to various protections.
This is just as unsatisfying an answer as Nissenbaums,
however. That there is already thought to be a zone of
privacy in this public forum seems evident, given the
numerous complaints about its breach (and not merely
about its loss). But why is this the case, and indeed, should
it be the case? I think we can do much better at clarifying
19
Nissenbaum (1998, pp. 571572).
20
Ibid., pp. 581589.
21
Ibid., p. 589.
22
Ibid., p. 592.
23
See, e.g., Nissenbaum (1998, p. 592), Michelfelder (2001, p. 130),
Westin (1967, p. 33), Gavison (1980, p. 442), Flaherty (1997, p. 187),
and Innes (1992).
24
Tavani (2007, p. 15).
6 D. W. Shoemaker
1 3
just whats going on here, i.e., just what the nature of the
(non-instrumental) objection to data mining consists in.
25
In the following two sections, I will argue that the demands
for recognition of a zone of informational privacy, as well
as protection against its breach, are essentially demands for
protection against the unauthorized exposure of ones
identity. What, though, is the nature of the identity in
question? And what reasons are there, if any, for protecting
against its unauthorized exposure? I address the rst
question in the next section, and the second question in the
section to follow.
Self-identity
In this section, I want to discuss four different accounts of
identity that might be relevant to the establishment of a
normative zone of informational privacy. Before discussing
these, though, we may rst set aside a sense of identity that
is utterly irrelevant here, namely, that of the numerical
identity of persons across time. This is the sense thats
usually under discussion when talking about personal
identity, and such discussants are typically searching for a
criterion of what makes X (a person) at some point in time
one and the same as an individual Y at some other time.
What were looking for here, however, is the nature of
identity in a very different sense, one that addresses the
more existential question, Who am I really? This is what
Marya Schechtman calls the characterization sense of
identity, and it addresses the question of which features
make someone the person she is.
26
Think of the matter this way. I have numerous proper-
ties: I have a pancreas, ten ngers, pinkish skin, two arms,
two legs, and various other physical traits, while I also have
many psychological traits, such as various beliefs, desires,
values, and emotional dispositions. Only a certain subset of
these properties makes me who I am as a person, however.
Only a certain subset will contribute to an understanding of
me (on the part of both others and myself). Only a certain
subset is mine, carving out a sense of self both relevant and
useful for moral and political philosophy. It is my task in
this section to make some suggestions about the proper
account of this subset, what I will call an account of self-
identity.
Before beginning, though, its important to note that I
am not maintaining here that the self is some kind of
distinct ontological object or that it has certain essential
properties. Instead, I simply believe theres some subset of
all my properties that is much more relevant than the rest to
answering the question, Who am I?a subset providing
a sensible understanding of meand so our task is to gure
out what makes that subset of properties relevant in this
particular way.
One way to put the demand here is that we want to nd
out the best explanation of what it means for me to be
identied with some particular set of properties, and such
talk of identication conjures up thoughts of Harry
Frankfurts groundbreaking work on the topic.
27
Over
many articles, Frankfurt weaves a tale about the nature of
identication that winds up looking something like the
following: from the set of desires I have to do various
things, one (or more) of them is rendered truly mine
authorized to move me to actionjust in case I have a
higher-order desire that it move me, a higher-order desire
with which Im also satised, i.e., with which I have no
conicting higher-order desires.
28
Many have disagreed with Frankfurts view over the
years, often rejecting it in favor of a more rationalist
view,
29
but tracking this debate isnt our concern, for
nothing in the neighborhood represents the account of self-
identity that were after. Instead, these accounts are all
about the nature of self-determination, about what makes
the psychological elements that move me truly authorized
by my self. But the account of self-identity were looking
for is far broader than merely an account of self-authorized
motivation. After all, there are many psychological prop-
erties central to my self-identity that may actually play no
role in motivation, e.g., various theoretical beliefs, emo-
tional dispositions, hopes, experience-memories, and so
forth. In addition, the Frankfurtian account is really about
identication of a moment, about a point in time where a
special relation between the self and a particular psycho-
logical element is formed, whereas were looking for a
much more robust, sustained, and stable story about the
self.
One might think, then, that the natural way to ameliorate
this concern would be to adopt an account of narrative
identity, an account developed in most careful detail by
Marya Schechtman. On her view, what makes some action,
experience, or psychological feature mineproperly
attributable to meis that I give it an intelligible place in
the self-told story of my life. Insofar as various experiences
25
Getting clear on the nature of the objection to data mining is quite
independent from establishing a right against it. Obviously, the
former is a necessary condition of the latter, but I dont attempt the
latter here. I will, however, say a few words about such a rights
establishment towards the end of the paper.
26
Schechtman (1996, p. 2). She calls numerical identity the reiden-
tication sense of identity.
27
See various of the essays in Frankfurt (1988), including Freedom
of the Will and the Concept of a Person, Identication and
Externality, and Identication and Wholeheartedness.
28
See Frankfurt (1999).
29
See, e.g., various essays in Watson (2004), Velleman (2000), and
Wallace (2006, esp. the essay Caring, Reexivity, and the Structure
of Volition).
Self-exposure and exposure of the self 7
1 3
become part of my life story, say, they may alter one
anothers nature, or provide interpretive insights into one
another, and the unit about whom the narrative is toldthe
unity of the various disparate experiences, actions, and
psychological features via the story I tellis me, the nar-
rative ego. On this view, according to Schechtman, An
individual constitutes herself as a person by coming to
organize her experience in a narrative self-conception of
the appropriate form.
30
Many details remain to be given about such a view, but
for our purposes we need merely point out that it too is
insufciently robust to provide the account of self-identity
were looking for. For one thing, it focuses solely on the
incorporation of various psychological properties into the
self, but it seems clear that various physical properties as
well can be essential to ones identity, e.g., for beautiful
men and women, the structure of their physical features
may be the key to understanding who they are; for females
and racial minorities in America, omission of certain
physical facts about them may omit key components of
their selves. For another thing, the narrative view is a
purely subjective, rst-person account of self-identitymy
self is constructed by the story I tellbut in that story I
may well deny or obscure truly important and relevant facts
about me. Alternatively, while I may not actively engage in
denial, I may simply fail to realize important and relevant
facts about me, where these nevertheless are essential to an
understanding of who I am.
Insofar as this purely internally-driven, subjective nature
of narrative identity leaves it ill-equipped to account for all
aspects of self-identity, we may be attracted to a more
externally-driven, objective account. In our third alterna-
tive, then, Anthony Appiah draws from Charles Taylor to
mark some sociological categories and distinctions that do
just this.
31
Among the properties of ourselves we nd
important for social life, according to Appiah, there are two
dimensions, the collective and personal. Both of these
aspects together make up what he calls our social identity.
The collective dimension of ones social identity consists
in the intersection of ones various collective identities, and
these are the individual social categories into which one is
judged by others to t, categories of race, gender, sexual
orientation, ethnicity, or religion.
32
These are categories for
kinds of persons. By contrast, the personal dimension of
my social identity consists in the intersection of all those
important social properties that dont comprise a recog-
nized individual social category, e.g., wittiness, greediness,
intelligence, or charmingness.
33
So while there are social
categories of white or Catholic folksagain, insofar as
they are seen as kinds of personsthere are no social
categories of greedy or clever folks. The intersection, then,
of both my personal dimension and my collective dimen-
sion constitutes my complete social identity.
34
Does this sort of account provide what we want here? In
particular, does Appiahs concept of social identity capture
all that we think a concept of self-identity ought to capture,
and does it properly establish or articulate the value(s)
associated with the concept?
Heres one reason to worry about the sufciency of the
account. For Appiah, what renders some property part of
my identity is its social importance. There may, however,
be properties of mine that are socially important but arent
part of my self-identity, and there may be properties that
are part of my self-identity that arent socially important.
As an example of the former, suppose that (in a very dif-
ferent world) I were extremely beautiful or tall. These
properties may be no part of my self-identityI may pay
them no mind whatsoever and they may play no role at all
as an organizing principle of my lifedespite their social
importance. Alternatively, suppose having been made fun
of as a child for wearing contact lenses torments me to this
day, and I thus take wearing contact lenses to be a dening
feature of my life. My being a contact-lens-wearer may
thus be a crucial part of my self-identity, despite its lack of
social importance (indeed, I may rail against the system
for not recognizing such a property as socially impor-
tant).
35
Now its of course true that various socially
important properties are part of my self-identity. But if
their social importance is neither necessary nor sufcient
for getting them in there, what is?
According to David Copp, the main trouble with Ap-
piahs view stems from the fact that it maintains it is
essentially other peoples responses to ones properties that
determine which of them count as part of ones identity.
36
Now this isnt an entirely accurate charge, insofar as Ap-
piah actually says ones properties are incorporated into
ones identity in virtue of their being socially or morally
important,
37
and a property could be morally important
independently of other peoples responses or judgments.
But at any rate the general thrust of the worry still holds,
for on Appiahs view a propertys being part of ones
identity is most denitely not a matter of ones own
30
Schechtman (1996, p. 134).
31
Appiah (1994). See also Taylor (1994).
32
Appiah (1994, pp. 150151).
33
Ibid., pp. 151152.
34
I can envision those who might try to resist this point by citing the
stock southern U.S. movie character who drawls to the outsider in a
sinister way, Oh, so youre one of them there witty fellers.
Nevertheless, this strikes me as more an attempt to create a social
kind for easy other-categorization than a recognition of an actual,
pre-existing social kind.
35
For examples along these lines, see Copp (2002, p. 368).
36
Copp (2002, p. 368).
37
Appiah (1994, p. 151).
8 D. W. Shoemaker
1 3
feelings or beliefs about it, and this seems far too external a
story.
We might, then, try again to push a more subjective
story, insisting that its only ones own actual attitudes
toward the properties in question that determine their
identity-status. One such possibility is that a property
becomes part of ones self-identity just in case one values
it.
38
This option seems mistaken as well, though, given that
either one may have a negative attitude towards a property
thats still part of ones self-identityas when one hates
the fact that one is gay or one is extremely tallor one
may have neither a positive nor a negative attitude towards
a property that is nevertheless part of ones identityas is
the case for many who are straight, white, and
male.
39
In addition, one might value some property that
isnt a part of ones self-identity, although this may be less
obvious. To see this, start with the more obvious point that
one could judge a property valuable without it being part of
ones self-identity, as when I judge that there is in fact
value in being beautiful, but despite being beautiful myself
its simply no part of my self-identity. This case might
seem clear insofar as judging X valuable doesnt entail
actually valuing X, but I also think valuing some property
doesnt necessarily make it part of ones self-identity. In
the rst place, one may value it very little, as when I value
having blue eyes, but being blue-eyed is nevertheless no
part of my self-identity. On the other hand, I may value one
of my properties a great deal without it being part of my
self-identity, as when I value greatly my having two legs
and two arms, but knowing that Im two-armed or two-
legged is just irrelevant to understanding who I am.
The fourth view of self-identity we will consider, then,
is Copps own view, according to which a property is part
of ones self-identity, roughly, if one has beliefs about it
that, in various circumstances, would ground emotions of
self-esteempositive or negativein a stable way, where
the relevant emotions include pride, shame, humiliation,
embarrassment, satisfaction, condence, disgrace, and so
on.
40
There are two important things to note about this
view. First, it maintains that ones self-identity consists in a
set of propositions. Each proposition is that one has a
certain property, F. Either one believes the proposition that
one has F or one doesnt. If one does, and if that propo-
sition grounds an emotion of self-esteem, then the
proposition that one has F is part of ones self-identity.
However, if one doesnt believe one has F, then if one
would nevertheless have certain emotions of self-esteem
regarding F in certain counterfactual conditions, then F
may still be part of ones identity. For example, I may not
necessarily believe that being white and being male are
part of my identity, but suppose another white male were to
commit some hate crime and I felt ashamed that I too was
white and male in that circumstance. If that were the case,
the propositions that I am white and that Im male seem to
be part of my self-identity. In addition, suppose I were to
come to believe I werent white or male (as part of some
radical experience machine experiment, say), and as a
result I were to feel mortied. This again suggests that
being white and male is part of my self-identity, despite my
occurrent lack of beliefs about those properties.
41
The second important thing to note is that the emotions
of self-esteem are grounded by the propositions which one
believes (or would believe in the counterfactual conditions
just citedfrom here on out for the sake of simplicity Ill
talk about self-identity just in terms of the propositions one
actually believes). How, though, does this grounding work?
On the one hand, the proposition itself may be the object of
esteem, as is the case when one is proud of the fact that one
is gay, or the rst female governor of a state, and so forth.
On the other hand, one might cite the identity-constituting
proposition merely to explain why one feels as one does, as
is the case when I feel pride at winning the tiddly-winks
contest in virtue of the fact that Ive had partial paralysis in
my arm for several years. And sometimes, of course, both
forms of grounding may be in place: one identity-consti-
tuting proposition may ground an emotion of self-esteem in
virtue of its being the object of the emotion, while that
emotion is also explained in virtue of another proposition
about oneself.
How, then, does this account of self-identity deal with
the insufciencies of the previous three attempts? The
worry about Frankfurtian-style accounts of identication
was that they focused solely on the psychological features
relevant to motivation at a time, whereas other psycho-
logical features may actually be relevant to self-identity,
which also requires some sort of stability across time. The
self-esteem account easily plugs these holes. On the one
hand, the relevant sort of stability is built into the account,
for eeting emotions of self-esteem simply dont count to
bring their grounding propositions into ones identity.
42
On
the other hand, the account incorporates many more fea-
turesboth psychological and physicalthan just putative
motivating desires as part of ones identity. Indeed,
Frankfurtian identication is simply about one aspect of
our identity, namely, the respect in which the self is
implicated in action. But understanding the self requires
much more than this.
One worry about the narrative identity account was that
it focuses solely on psychological properties, excluding
38
See, e.g., Korsgaard (1996, p. 101).
39
Cf., Copp (2002, pp. 367368).
40
Ibid., e.g., pp. 371375.
41
Ibid., pp. 374375.
42
Ibid., p. 372.
Self-exposure and exposure of the self 9
1 3
physical features that are clearly included in peoples
identity. In addition, by focusing entirely on the story I tell
about my life as the determinant of my self-identity, the
narrative identity view has difculty incorporating features
I fail to recognize or about which I might deceive myself.
The self-esteem account does very well on both counts,
however. On the one hand, it can clearly incorporate
physical features just in those cases in which beliefs about
such features do or would ground emotions of self-esteem
in their owners. On the other hand, the self-esteem account
doesnt depend on the story the person actually tells herself
as determining her self-identity, so it can incorporate fea-
tures ignored by that person. It is what ones emotional
reactions are or would be that determine ones identity
rather than what stories one tells oneself, and this seems
right: regarding whats important, our emotional reactions
dont lie, whereas we ourselves often do. Finally, the self-
esteem account also captures what is intuitively attractive
about the narrative identity view, insofar as it too helps
make sense of ones life in terms of a narrative structure.
As Copp puts it:
A persons self-esteem identity can be viewed as a
selective narrative about her life, history, situation,
social context, plans, and projects. I think it is plau-
sible to call this narrative her identity because it is
a narrative about her that she herself believes and that
grounds her own basic emotional attitude toward
herself. If she came to have different beliefs about
herself, with the result that this narrative changed, she
would feel differently about herself.
43
Finally, the self-esteem theory of identity is preferable
to Appiahs social identity view. For one thing, it can
incorporate all the relevant socially important properties
Appiah discusses, where beliefs about those properties
ground emotions of self-esteem. In addition, the self-
esteem theory also incorporates properties that arent
socially (or morally) important, sometimes being properties
one merely wishes were socially important, and sometimes
being properties whose social importance one rejects or
couldnt care less about.
44
The self-esteem view of self-identity strikes me as
extremely plausible, although it will be important for our
later discussion to consider some possible counterexamples
to it. First, suppose I feel that my obsession with my self-
esteem has ruined my life to this point, for it has made me a
slave to certain sorts of emotional ups-and-downs. As a
result, I work hard at eliminating these emotional reactions
(via a study of Buddhism, say), and I become quite suc-
cessful. It seems right to say about me that whats central to
my identity is now my esteem-independent character,
despite the fact that my believing my character is esteem-
independent doesnt ground any emotions of self-esteem.
Of course, its as yet extremely unclear whether or not we
can make sense of someone like this. After all, wouldnt
this person be disappointed in himself if he found out hed
lost his esteem-independent character?
45
In any event, though, Im more interested in whether or
not Copp draws the emotional boundaries of the self in the
right place. He focuses on a particular subset of emotional
reactions, specically those that implicate self-esteem.
Mature emotional reactions like this are, as Ive argued
elsewhere, expressions of ones cares, indications of whats
important to one.
46
And insofar as the relevant emotions
are those of self-esteem, it seems natural to think that these
emotional reactions are indeed picking out properties of the
self. But why should we think these are the only relevant
properties of the self? I think, for instance, that its exactly
right to treat beliefs grounding feelings of shame as being
just as important to ones identity as beliefs grounding
pride,
47
but might there not be non-esteem-related emo-
tions that indicate something important about ones
identityabout who one isas well?
Suppose that I care deeply about how others view my
self-identity. Perhaps I am gay, and it matters a great deal
to me that people in fact think of me as gay. Suppose
further that I believe both that I am gay and that I have this
care. My belief that I am gay will of course ground emo-
tions of self-esteem, usually pride. But what of my belief
that I care deeply about being thought of as gay? Here there
will be emotional reactions that are to be expected when
this care is undermined, e.g., when people in fact dont
think of me as gay, I will feel disappointment or anger.
Now these arent emotions of self-esteem, but it never-
theless seems as if the proposition that I care about being
publicly perceived as gay is an important part of my
identity; it will be difcult to understand me otherwise.
More generally, I may have certain beliefs about the
type of person I am, i.e., beliefs about the nature of my self-
identity. Suppose, for instance, that I believe the proposi-
tion that Im a person whose identity consists in the set of
properties X, Y, Z. Suppose further that I care very much
that this is what my identity in fact consists in. If it were to
turn out that I were wrong, that this set wasnt in fact what
my identity consists in, I would be deeply upset, but I may
not necessarily experience any emotions specically rela-
ted to self-esteem, e.g., pride or shame. Nevertheless, it
seems that the fact that I do believe this and care about it so
43
Ibid., pp. 375376.
44
Ibid., p. 379.
45
Copp has agreed with this sort of reply to the case in
correspondence.
46
Shoemaker (2003).
47
Copp (2002, p. 378).
10 D. W. Shoemaker
1 3
much renders it an aspect of my self-identity: Im the type
of person who cares about the type of person he is, who
cares about what his self-identity actually consists in.
In light of such cases, we might either try to amend the
account or show how it can handle the cases. One possible
amendment would be to suggest that it is simply my set of
cares simpliciter that determines my identity, such that if
my belief about some proposition grounds an emotional
reaction of any kind, its indicative of my caring about the
item implicated in the proposition and so its a property of
my self, part of my identity. And here we might think that
certain properties are more or less central to my identity
depending on the depth or strength of the relevant care. The
worry about this sort of amended account is perhaps that
its too broad, however, for I may have emotional reactions
to all sorts of things that have nothing to do with what we
think of as my identity (even if we allow a scalar dimension
to it). The amended account also loses the theoretical
advantages of the Copp version, which makes emotions of
self-esteem central to the account precisely because theyre
reactions to how we see or understand ourselves, and they
seem to be the right sort of indicators for what we ourselves
think is central to our nature. Indeed, they are just the sorts
of emotional reactions we expect when one nds ones self
exposed: pride, shame, embarrassment, mortication, con-
tentment, and the like. So there are strong grounds to try to
preserve the non-amended account.
That said, how might the self-esteem account deal with
the reexive cases, those in which beliefs and cares about
ones identity are themselves part of ones identity? One
way is simply to resist the description. Reconsider the case
in which I care that others come to see my actual identity.
It seems quite plausible to say that, were I to think people
actually dont believe Im gay, Id really be mortied or
embarrassed, and not just disappointed or angry.
48
It cer-
tainly seems, after all, that Id experience pride were I to
believe people actually do think Im gay, for they would be
seeing me as I am, seeing my true self. And this is a sort of
treatment we could run more widely to the more general
reexive cares, for if it matters to me that I be a certain sort
of person, it would be hard to see why I wouldnt be proud
were I to believe I was that sort of person.
In what follows, then, I will adopt and apply the self-
esteem account of self-identity more or less as given.
Nevertheless, if someone were to balk at its treatment of
the reexive cases that we will address, it should still be
possible to construct a broader amended version that will
yield the same general results, although I wont undertake
that construction here.
Let us see, then, how this account of identity applies to
the case of informational privacy. Given what Ive just
said, it may be obvious what the application will consist in,
so in comparison to the lengthy treatment of identity weve
just undergone, my treatment here will be rather brief.
Identity management and autonomy
Before our detour into the nature of self-identity, we were
looking for justications for both recognition of a zone of
informational privacy and protection against its breach.
Such justication has to consist in an articulation and
defense of the nature and boundaries of the zone, as well as
an account of the values at stake when the zone is violated.
I believe the view of self-identity just detailed provides us
with what we need.
The two main intuitive ideas to be advanced here are
these. First, the zone to be protected consists in information
just about properties that are part of ones self-identity, so
the boundaries of this zone will typically be smaller and
more restrictive than the boundaries of the zone of infor-
mation available about one generally. Second, when this
zone is accessed in an unauthorized way, a specic aspect
of autonomy is indeed undermined, namely, the ability to
manage ones reputation, i.e., to manage the public expo-
sure and construal of certain types of information about
ones self-identity. In the remainder of the paper, I will try
to explain and defend both of these ideas.
Start with the rst, that the zone to be recognized and
respected consists in information about ones self-identity.
This is information about properties that ground ones
emotions of self-esteem. It makes perfect sense, then, that
this is precisely the sort of information one would want
protected, for its being revealed may subject one to the
humiliating possibilities of shame, embarrassment, and
mortication. Notice too that the worry about exposure of
this type isnt about possible instrumental harms, e.g., that
someone will go on to do something harmful with this
information. Rather, the worry is precisely about the fact
that someone just knows certain aspects of ones identity,
aspects one would prefer (in this instance) remain unknown
(or perhaps little known). The harm is in the unauthorized
exposure of ones self in and of itself. This suggests that,
contrary to Tavanis RALC theory, it is not the situation or
zone, but rather is the kind of information itself, that
matters for determinations of normative protection.
More can be said about this last point. As mentioned
above, the zone of information to be protected will typi-
cally be a small subset of all the information there is about
one. For instance, I have a pancreas, ten ngers, desires for
food, beliefs about the rules of golf, etc., but none of these
properties is part of my self-identity, for my beliefs about
them wouldnt ground any emotions of self-esteem. As a
result, its difcult to think of this information as private or
48
This is a response Copp himself seems to favor (in correspondence).
Self-exposure and exposure of the self 11
1 3
to nd a non-instrumental objection to others knowing it.
But when such information hits close to home, as it were,
being about the true me, then matters are entirely different,
for now my self-esteem is at stake.
It is thus by means of this distinction (between informa-
tion about a person and information about that persons self-
identity) that we can resolve the puzzle of privacy in public
raised by considerations of data mining. For why would one
object to data mining when it simply gathers up information
thats already publicly available about oneself and patterns
it? Heres one reason: the information thats publicly
available tends to be information that isnt part of ones self-
identity, whereas the patterning produced by data mining
often is. Consider an illustration. Suppose I visit a number of
websites one day, making purchases, downloading songs,
watching videos, reading blogs. These activities yield vari-
ous bits of information about me. Suppose then that a data
mining program collects and collates these bits of informa-
tion and produces the following prole of me for advertisers:
Subject is an upper-middle-class straight white married
male who owns an SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle), is a pro-
fessor, and has two daughters and a dog. His taste in music
and lms suggests he likes non-commercial fare and thinks
of himself as independent-minded. He is politically rather
liberal, and he provides charitable support to organizations
helping those with disabilities. This is a prole that might
well have been drawn from dollops of information that
separately dont implicate anything about my identity, but
when patterned in this way actually do: the proler now
purports to know something about me, whereas without the
patterning he just knew various unrelated bits about some
persons life.
Again, the immediate and obvious worry about
anothers having this knowledge is that my particular self-
identity may well mostly be a source of shame for me.
Given various atrocities committed by straight white men,
for example (pedophilia, domestic violence, warmonger-
ing), I may be deeply ashamed to be one. That those
properties are part of my identity is beyond question; that
you (a stranger) know that I instantiate those properties
that you think about me in that waymay nevertheless be
deeply mortifying.
What if it turns out, however, that the prole doesnt
correctly capture my self-identity? Here it may seem we
have a puzzle. Suppose that there are certain scripts for
living my life that are attached to being a straight white
male, life-scripts by which I have felt tyrannized.
49
As a
result, Ive tried and eventually succeeded in rendering the
various properties of skin color, gender, and sexual orien-
tation outside my true self, making them akin to having a
pancreas or ten ngers, no longer associated with any
emotions of self-esteem. Why, then, would I object to
being proled as a straight white male if those were not
aspects of my self-identity any longer?
The answer, I believe, is that emotions of self-esteem
are still likely to be implicated here, just with respect to
different properties. For even though I no longer have
beliefs about my being straight, white, and male that
ground emotions of self-esteem, I do have beliefs about the
absence of such properties from my self-identity that do
ground emotions of self-esteem. In other words, there may
be facts about aspects of my identity itself with respect to
which I feel pride or shame.
50
So one notable fact about my
self-identity as a whole may be that theres nothing in it
about skin color, gender, or sexual orientation, and my
beliefs about this aspect of my current identity may spark
real pride when noted and believed by others. Conversely,
when this fact isnt noted, or worse, when others believe
the opposite about meseeing me as in fact a straight
white maleI may well be mortied. A data prole that
pegs me in this way makes a mockery of my true identity.
Relatedly, I may be mortied when people get my self-
identity wrong, period, which is a distinct possibility in
data mining. These are cases in which I just dont want
people thinking the wrong thing about who I am, despite
my not necessarily having any beliefs even about the
absence of certain properties from my self-identity. My
attitude here indicates that I care about the presentation of
my self-identity in such a way that this fact about myself is
incorporated into my very self-identity (this is the reexive
case discussed earlier). Thus, when I feel mortication at
someones incorrect construal of me, its this reexive
belief about my self-identity thats implicated.
51
A similar sort of answer might be given to another
seeming puzzle. We have focused to this point on the
negative emotions of self-esteemshame, embarrassment,
morticationthat may be conjured up by data mining.
But what if these arent the emotions being conjured up?
What if, after all, I take pride in the fact that Im a straight
white male? Sure, an emotion of self-esteem is being
implicated, but its a positive emotion. Why, then, would I
object to that?
I may not. In fact, I may like the fact that Ive been
proled in this way so that I can receive some advertise-
ments and special offers on items I truly want and will
49
See Appiah (1994, pp. 160163).
50
Cf., Copp (2002, p. 374, fn. 23).
51
A former colleague told me a story that provides a perfect analog
to this sort of technological case. One day he was driving to work and
when stuck at a light he dropped the carrot hed been eating between
his legs. As he fumbled around trying to nd it, he glanced up and saw
a bus of German tourists next to him, many of whom were staring in
disgust at what it looked like he was doing in his car. He said he felt
great mortication that this group of strangers would think such a
thing of him, that he was some sort of pervert.
12 D. W. Shoemaker
1 3
appreciate. But it remains quite possible for me to object
instead, despite the fact that there are no negative emotions
of self-esteem being implicated in the prole itself, and the
reason may be that, once again, I have a belief about how my
self-identity ought to be presented. There may be plenty of
things about me that Im proud of, but it may well be that I
want to be the one to present them as such. Suppose Ive just
won a big award and I cant wait to tell my wife about it, but
you call her up and tell her before I can. Youve prevented
me from presenting the news in the way I wanted to, and
despite the fact that Im still proud of my accomplishment,
youve tarnished it.
Now this belief about how my self-identity is to be
presented may itself ground emotions of self-esteem or it
may not. I could be embarrassed when you prevent me
from presenting my identity in the manner and forum I
want, but I could just be angry. What matters for our
purposes, though, is simply that one may have identity-
related grounds for objecting to data mining and patterning
even when the prole produced highlights elements of
ones identity of which one is proud.
Indeed, here is the connection to autonomy we had been
seeking: when I am prevented from being able to present
my self-identity to others in the manner I see t, my
autonomy is undermined insofar as I am unable to do what
I want with my self: I am rendered unable to expose that
self to others on my own terms, unable to be the manager
of my own reputation. Breaches of informational privacy
thus take away a key element of self-determination, and
therein lies the alleged non-instrumental harm. This harm
may be in place even for those who wouldve presented
precisely the identity presented by their data proler, for it
may matter greatly to someone that he or she, and not
someone else, be the one who exposes such information.
Identifying autonomy as the value underlying informa-
tional privacy suggests advocacy of a version of the control
theory of privacy, according to which one has such privacy
when one has control over ones personal information.
Now as we have seen, there are objections to control the-
ories generally, but I believe the view as specied here can
answer them (while also providing a much sharper version
of the control theory). The rst objection was that such
theories cant account for cases in which someone reveals
all his personal information, given the theorys seemingly
absurd implication that because this person exercises con-
trol over the release of such information, he still has
privacy. As already noted, though, one could respond to
this worry by pointing out that the relevant form of control
ranges over ones unrevealed information only. The second
worry was that it is quite unclear just what this zone of
information is, precisely, but our answer to this ought to be
obvious: the relevant information is information about
ones self-identity. The third worry was a question about
the extent of control required, for surely one couldnt have
control over every aspect of information about oneself. Our
answer is that the extent of control required is simply over
the presentation of ones self-identity, and not over all
information about oneself; indeed, lots of bits of informa-
tion are available about oneself in a variety of forums, but
as long as they dont implicate ones self-identity, they
arent private in the sense under discussion.
This suggests the following more specic and clearer
version of the control theory: one has informational pri-
vacy when one has control over the access to and
presentation of (unrevealed) information about ones self-
identity. This theory also fares well against the alternatives.
For one thing, its an improvement over the limitation
theory, given that what seems to matter is not simply that
others have limited access to information about my self-
identity, but that I control who has access and who doesnt.
In addition, this theory is more plausible than Tavanis
RALC theory, which emphasizes restriction of access to
certain information in the context of a situation. This is
quite vague, recall, providing no clear way to handle the
privacy in public challenge, but it also seems wrongly to
maintain that its not the type of information that matters
for privacy. Instead, where the concern for privacy is solely
about the non-instrumental harms attached to someone
elses knowledge of certain information, the relevant type
of information is simply information about ones self-
identity.
52
What emerges from this discussion is what we may call
the identity management objection to data mining and
proling. People typically have an interest in controlling
access to information about their self-identities, an interest
serious enough that it may well ground a full-edged right
to informational privacy.
53
We may summarize and sys-
tematize the claims being made, then, as follows:
1. The Control Theory of Privacy: The domain of
informational privacy, the zone to be protected, is
information about ones self-identity, i.e., information
52
It may well be that RALC still works best with respect to a broader
sense of privacy, where someone elses knowledge of my personal
information may also be instrumentally harmful: that person might do
something nasty with my information. In those sorts of cases, the
domain of relevant information may indeed depend on the context of
a situation. My medical information, for instance, probably involves
no information about aspects of my self-identity. Nevertheless, the
only reason to keep such information private (or restrict access to it) is
to prevent harmful uses of it, by insurance companies, say. But when
it comes to information whose exposure we deem non-instrumentally
harmful, the relevant domain will be, I am suggesting, information
about ones self-identity.
53
I do not discuss here, though, whether or not such an interest is in
fact serious enough to ground a right. Im only interested in getting
clear on the precise nature of the objection to data mining and the
values that underline it.
Self-exposure and exposure of the self 13
1 3
about all or part of the set of properties about which
ones beliefs ground emotions of self-esteem. One has
informational privacy to the extent one has control
over others access to, and ones own presentation of,
such (unrevealed) information.
2. The Identity Management Objection: Patterning and
proling drawn from publicly-available bits of infor-
mationdata miningis non-instrumentally objec-
tionable insofar as it functions as a presentation by an
unauthorized other of a construal of (aspects of) ones
self-identity, a private matter, and the objectionable-
ness here may have one of three sources: (a) where the
construal is correct, but the aspects or exposure of the
self-identity are shameful or embarrassing to the
exposed party; (b) where the construal is correct, and
the aspects of the self-identity exposed are ones about
which the exposed party is proud, yet the exposed
party wanted to be the one doing the exposing; or (c)
where the construal is incorrect, which is itself a
source of shame or embarrassment for the exposed
party, given that partys emotional investment in his or
her identity being construed in a certain way.
3. The Harm: The value grounding the objections in each
case is a specic aspect of autonomy, namely, the
capacity to manage, as much as possible, the presen-
tation and public construal of ones self-identity. This
aspect of ones autonomy is thus undermined in
objectionable cases of data mining.
4. The Right: Insofar as the interest in protecting this
aspect of autonomy is sufciently serious, it may
ground a right to informational privacy.
The basic idea is that if I have a right to informational
privacy, I have a right to control or manage the presenta-
tion of my self-identity. I also have a right to manage
certain public construals of my self-identity, or at least to
have some sort of say in determining what others think
about the type of person I am. Now certainly I cant control
what people in fact think about me. But I can typically have
an effect on the ways people construe me in virtue of what
aspects of my self-identity I myself expose (or allow to be
exposed) as well as how I go about exposing them. What
may be objected to in data mining and subsequent prol-
ing, then, is that a construal has been effected without ones
desired and expected input into the process.
A nal note. Some people may not care at all about the
management of their identities or various construals
thereof. This may be because there arent any properties in
their identity that are sources of shame or embarrassment,
or it may be because they genuinely dont care how others
think of them. But despite the lip service paid to the dictum
to pay no mind to what others think about you, or the
thought that you should do or be only what you can be
proud of, I suspect that it is the rare person who is actually
like this. Most of us, despite our best efforts, have aws,
and care more than we like to admit about how others see
us (such that a belief about this care may ground embar-
rassment), and so it is no wonder that most of us have
reason to object to the sort of proling produced by data
mining. That a stranger may come to know our aws is
mortifying. And because we do care what others think, we
want to contribute our own voices to those in their heads.
When it comes to the exposure of our selves, most of us
prefer that our selves be the ones doing the exposing.
54
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For his initial spark of inspiration and subsequent insightful
discussion of some of the key ideas here, I am grateful to Steve Wall.
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