Abstract

I consider the foundational issue of whether we have a right to information that is fundamental in being independent of other rights and general in protecting all information. To this end, I distinguish two kinds of morally relevant value an entity might have, i.e. intrinsic and instrumental value, and explain the role that each has in determining whether a person has a fundamental moral interest in that entity. Next, I argue that, by itself, the claim that some entity E has an informative nature does not justify believing that E has either intrinsic value or instrumental value. Accordingly, I conclude that whatever protection morality provides to our interests in information, such protection does not rise to the level of a right that is either general in the sense that it applies to all information or fundamental in the sense that it is not derived from other more basic rights.