What place does freedom have in Confucianism? We find a wide spectrum of views on the matter: some deny that Confucians value or even conceive of freedom, while others celebrate uniquely exalted fo...

Purpose Privacy has been understood as about one’s own information, information that is not one’s own is not typically considered with regards to an individual’s privacy. This paper aims to draw attention to this issue for conceptualizing privacy when one’s privacy is breached by others’ information. Design/methodology/approach To illustrate the issue that others' information can breach one's own privacy, this paper uses real-world applications of forensic genealogy and recommender systems to motivate the discussion. Findings In both forensic genealogy and recommender (...) systems, the individual’s privacy is breached by information that is not one’s own. The information that breached one’s privacy, by its nature, is beyond the scope of an individual, which is a phenomenon that has already been captured by emerging discussions about group privacy. This paper further argues that the underlying issue reflected by the examples of forensic genealogy is an extreme case even under the consideration of group privacy. This is because, unlike recommender systems that rely on large amounts of data to make inferences about an individual, forensic genealogy exposes one’s identity by using only one other individual’s information. This paper echoes existing discussions that this peculiar situation where others’ information breaches one’s own privacy reveals the problematic nature of conceptualizing privacy relying only on individualistic assumptions. Moreover, this paper suggests a relational perspective as an alternative for theorizing privacy. Originality/value This situation that others’ information breached one’s own privacy calls for an updated understanding of not only privacy but also the relationship between the person and their information. Privacy scholars need to renew their ethical language and vocabularies to properly understand the issue, which recent privacy conceptualizations are already doing (e.g. group privacy). (shrink)

What place does freedom have in Confucianism? We find a wide spectrum of views on the matter: some deny that Confucians value or even conceive of freedom, while others celebrate uniquely exalted fo...

What place does freedom have in Confucianism? We find a wide spectrum of views on the matter: some deny that Confucians value or even conceive of freedom, while others celebrate uniquely exalted forms of Confucian freedom. This paper examines the range of proposals, finding consensus among these diverse views in that all identify distinctive Confucian emphases on (i) subjective affirmation of the good and (ii) the cultivation of desires and intentions to align with that good. The variation among views of (...) Confucian freedom does not result from disparate interpretations of Confucian teachings. Rather, their divergence lies in affirming or denying that these core aspects of Confucian thought should be seen as ‘freedom.’ This reveals an undiscussed, fundamental question regarding Confucian freedom: Can and should we see the traditional Confucian moral ideal—that is, Confucian goodness and sagely virtue—as versions of freedom? What do we gain by doing so? (shrink)

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, and to bodily autonomy. There is broad (...) agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)