Philosophers have focused on why privacy is of value to innocent people with nothing to hide. I argue that for people who do have something to hide, such as a past crime, or bad behavior in a public place, informational privacy can be important for avoiding undeserved or disproportionate non-legal punishment. Against the objection that one cannot expect privacy in public facts, I argue that I might have a legitimate privacy interest in public facts that are not readily accessible, or (...) in details of a public fact that implicate my dignity, or in not having a public fact memorialized and spread to more people than I willingly exposed myself to. (shrink)

In light of technology that may reveal the content of a person’s innermost thoughts, I address the question of whether there is a right to ‘brain privacy’—a right not to have one’s inner thoughts revealed to others–even if exposing these thoughts might be beneficial to society. I draw on a conception of privacy as the ability to control who has access to information about oneself and to an account that connects one’s interest in privacy to one’s interests in autonomy and (...) associated reputational interests, and preserving one’s dignity. Focusing on the controversial case of Gilberto Valle, known as the ‘cannibal cop’, who faced legal punishment and moral reproach for deeply disturbing thoughts of doing violence to women, thoughts he claimed were mere fantasies, I argue that Valle has a right to brain privacy if he has a legitimate privacy interest that is not outweighed by competing societal interests in avoiding harm. Our weighing of competing privacy and societal interests will depend on the magnitude of the privacy interests in autonomy and dignity, and on how reliable the technology used to expose inner thoughts is in predicting future harmful behavior and identifying true threats. (shrink)

Racist jokes are often funny. And part of this has to do with their racism. Many Polish jokes, for example, may easily be converted into moron jokes but are not at all funny when delivered as such. Consider two answers to ‘What has an I.Q. of 1007’: a nation of morons; or Poland. Similarly, jokes portraying Jews as cheap, Italians as cowards, and Greeks as dishonest may be told as jokes about how skinflints, cowards, or dishonest people get on in (...) the world. But they are less funny as such. As this suggests, racist humor is ‘put down’ humor. We laugh, in part, because we find put-downs funny, sometimes even if they are about us. In many contexts, this tendency is relatively harmless; indeed, within reason, it may be therapeutic to join others in a good laugh at oneself. Why, then, all the commotion about racist humor? (shrink)

Everyone knows that something has gone wrong, in the United States, with the conventions of privacy. Along with a vastly increased tolerance for variation in sexual life we have seen a sharp increase in prurient and censorious attention to the sexual lives of public figures and famous persons, past and present. The culture seems to be growing more tolerant and more intolerant at the same time, though perhaps different parts of it are involved in the two movements.

Are there moral rights to do moral wrong? A right to do wrong is a right that others not interfere with the right-holder’s wrongdoing. It is a right against enforcement of duty, that is a right that others not interfere with one’s violation of one’s own obligations. The strongest reason for moral rights to do moral wrong is grounded in the value of personal autonomy. Having a measure of protected choice (that is a right) to do wrong is a condition (...) for an autonomous life and for autonomous moral self-constitution. This view has its critics. Responding to these objections reveals that none refute the coherence of the concept of a ‘moral right to do moral wrong’. At most, some objections successfully challenge the weight and frequency of the personal autonomy reasons for such rights. Autonomy-based moral rights to do moral wrong are therefore conceptually possible as well as, at least on occasion, actual. (shrink)

Rights to do wrong are not necessary even within the framework of interest-based rights aimed at preserving autonomy. Agents can make morally significant choices and develop their moral character without a right to do wrong, so long as we allow that there can be moral variation within the set of actions that an agent is permitted to perform. Agents can also engage in non-trivial self-constitution in choosing between morally indifferent options, so long as there is adequate non-moral variation among the (...) alternatives. The stubborn intuition that individuals have a right to do wrong in some cases can be explained as stemming from a cautionary principle motivated by the asymmetry between the risk of wrongly interfering and that of refraining from interfering. (shrink)

Retribution is often dismissed as augmenting the initial harm done, rather than ameliorating it. This criticism rests on a crude view of retribution. In our actual practice in informal situations and in the workings of the reactive (properly called 'retributive') sentiments, retribution is true to the gravity of wrongdoing, but does aim to ameliorate it. Through wrongdoing, offenders become alienated from the moral community: their actions place their commitment to its core values in doubt. We recognize this status in blaming, (...) a withdrawal of civility and solidarity which symbolizes the moral distance wrongdoers have put between them and us. Atonement is the means by which they make themselves 'at one' again with the community. Retribution is properly understood as a cycle which recognizes disruption and alienation, but aims at reconciliation. (shrink)

This article argues that people have legitimate interests in privacy that deserve legal protection on democratic principles. It describes the right to privacy as a bundle of rights of solitude, intimacy and confidentiality and shows that, so described, people have legitimate interests in privacy. These interests are both personal and political, and provide the grounds for two different justifications of privacy rights. Though both are based on democratic concerns for the freedom and equality of individuals, these two justifications for privacy (...) can be distinguished because the one is principally concerned with protecting the personal freedom and equality of individuals, while the other is principally concerned with their political equivalents. Feminists have often been ambivalent about legal protection for privacy, because privacy rights have, so often, protected the coercion and exploitation of women, and made it difficult to politicise personal forms of injustice. However, interpreting the content and justification of privacy rights in light of the differences between democratic and undemocratic forms of politics can enable us to meet these concerns, and to distinguish a democratic justification of privacy rights from the alternatives. (shrink)

This paper examines MacKinnon’s claims about the relationship of rights to privacy and equality in light of the reasoning in Harris and Bowers. When we contrast the Majority and Minority decisions in these cases, it shows, we can distinguish interpretations of the right to privacy that are consistent with sexual equality from those that are not. This is not simply because the two differ in their consequences – though they do - but because the former, unlike the latter, rely on (...) empirical and normative assumptions that would justify sexual inequality whatever right they were used to interpret. So while I agree with MacKinnon that the Majority’s interpretation of the right to privacy in Harris is inconsistent with the equality of men and women, I show that there is no inherent inconsistency in valuing both privacy and equality, and no reason why we must chose to protect the one, rather than the other. Indeed, an examination of MacKinnon’s article, I suggest, can help us to see why rights to privacy can be part of a scheme of democratic rights, and how we might go about democratising the right to privacy in future. To avoid confusion I should emphasise that my arguments are of a philosophical, not a legal, nature. Thus, I will be ignoring the specifically legal and constitutional aspects of MacKinnon’s article, and of the Supreme Court decisions, in order to bring their philosophical significance into focus. (shrink)

This article argues that people have legitimate interests in privacy that deserve legal protection on democratic principles. It describes the right to privacy as a bundle of rights of personal choice, association and expression and shows that, so described, people have legitimate political interests in privacy. These interests reflect the ways that privacy rights can supplement the protection for people’s freedom and equality provided by rights of political choice, association and expression, and can help to make sure that these are, (...) genuinely, democratic. Feminists have often been ambivalent about legal protection for privacy, because privacy rights have, so often, protected the coercion and exploitation of women, and made it difficult to politicise personal forms of injustice. However, attention to the differences between democratic and undemocratic forms of politics can enable us to meet these concerns, and to distinguish a democratic justification of privacy rights from the alternatives. (shrink)

Are rights to privacy consistent with sexual equality? In a brief, but influential, article Catherine MacKinnon trenchantly laid out feminist criticisms of the right to privacy. In “Privacy v. Equality: Beyond Roe v. Wade” she linked familiar objections to the right to privacy and connected them to the fate of abortion rights in the U.S.A. (MacKinnon, 1983, 93-102). For many feminists, the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) had suggested that, notwithstanding a dubious past, legal rights to privacy (...) might serve feminist objectives, and prove consistent with sexual equality. By arguing that Roe’s privacy justification of abortion rights was directly responsible for the weakness and vulnerability of abortion rights in America, MacKinnon took aim at feminist hopes for the right to privacy at their strongest point. Maintaining that Roe’s privacy justification of abortion is intimately, and not contingently, related to the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Harris v. McRae, (1980) MacKinnon concluded that privacy rights cannot be reconciled with the freedom and equality of women, and so can have no place in a democracy.1 In Harris, the Supreme Court held that the State need not provide Medicaid coverage for abortions that are necessary to preserve the health, but not the life, of a pregnant woman, effectively depriving poor women of almost all state aid for abortions.2 Moreover, the Court’s subsequent decision in Bowers v . Hardwick (1986) appeared to confirm the truth of MacKinnon’s observation – though this case concerned gay rights, rather than abortion rights, and occurred several years after MacKinnon’s condemnation of Harris. -/- This paper examines MacKinnon’s claims about the relationship of rights to privacy and equality in light of the reasoning in Harris and Bowers. When we contrast the Majority and Minority decisions in these cases, it shows, we can distinguish interpretations of the right to privacy that are consistent with sexual equality from those that are not. This is not simply because the two differ in their consequences – though they do - but because the former, unlike the latter, rely on empirical and normative assumptions that would justify sexual inequality whatever right they were used to interpret. So while I agree with MacKinnon that the Majority’s interpretation of the right to privacy in Harris is inconsistent with the equality of men and women, I show that there is no inherent inconsistency in valuing both privacy and equality, and no reason why we must chose to protect the one, rather than the other. Indeed, an examination of MacKinnon’s article, I suggest, can help us to see why rights to privacy can be part of a scheme of democratic rights, and how we might go about democratising the right to privacy in future. To avoid confusion I should emphasise that my arguments are of a philosophical, not a legal, nature. Thus, I will be ignoring the specifically legal and constitutional aspects of MacKinnon’s article, and of the Supreme Court decisions, in order to bring their philosophical significance into focus. -/- . (shrink)