It is both an ideal and an assumption of traditional conceptions of justice for liberal democracies that citizens are autonomous, self-governing persons. Yet standard accounts of the self and of self-government at work in such theories are hotly disputed and often roundly criticized in most of their guises. John Christman offers a sustained critical analysis of both the idea of the 'self' and of autonomy as these ideas function in political theory, offering interpretations of these ideas which avoid such disputes (...) and withstand such criticisms. Christman's model of individual autonomy takes into account the socially constructed nature of persons and their complex cultural and social identities, and he shows how this model can provide a foundation for principles of justice for complex democracies marked by radical difference among citizens. His book will interest a wide range of readers in philosophy, politics, and the social sciences. (shrink)

The prevailing paradigm in Internet privacy literature, treating privacy within a context merely of rights and violations, is inadequate for studying the Internet as a social realm. Following Goffman on self-presentation and Altman's theorizing of privacy as an optimization between competing pressures for disclosure and withdrawal, the author investigates the mechanisms used by a sample (n = 704) of college students, the vast majority users of Facebook and Myspace, to negotiate boundaries between public and private. Findings show little to no (...) relationship between online privacy concerns and information disclosure on online social network sites. Students manage unwanted audience concerns by adjusting profile visibility and using nicknames but not by restricting the information within the profile. Mechanisms analogous to boundary regulation in physical space, such as walls, locks, and doors, are favored; little adaptation is made to the Internet's key features of persistence, searchability, and cross-indexability. The author also finds significant racial and gender differences. (shrink)

Over the past decade the use of closed circuit television (CCTV) as a means of crime prevention has reached unprecedented levels. Though critics of this development do not speak with one voice and have pointed to a number of different problems in the use of CCTV, one argument has played a dominant role in the debate, namely, that CCTV constitutes an unacceptable violation of people’s right to privacy. The purpose of this paper is to examine this argument critically. It is (...) suggested that the argument is hard to sustain. (shrink)

While maintaining the importance of privacy for critical evaluations of surveillance technologies, I suggest that privacy also constrains the debate by framing analyses in terms of the individual. Public space provides a site for considering what is at stake with surveillance technologies besides privacy. After describing two accounts of privacy and one of public space, I argue that surveillance technologies simultaneously add an ambiguityand a specificity to public places that are detrimental to the social, cultural, and civic importance of these (...) places. By making public places accessible to other places and/or times, surveillance technologies make these social contexts ambiguous by blurring their spatial and temporal bounds. At the same time, surveillancetechnologies valence public places in functionally specificways that are detrimental to informal civic life. To complement defensive approaches to surveillance technologies based onindividual privacy, I conclude by suggesting how sociality as a relational value or an ethics of place as a contextual value could provide a proactive line of reasoning for affirming the value ofthat which is between people and places. (shrink)

Throughout the longstanding debate on privacy, the concept has been framed in various ways. Most often it has been discussed as an area within which individuals rightfully may expect to be left alone and in terms of certain data that they should be entitled to control. The sphere in which individuals should be granted freedom from intrusion has typically been equated with the indisputably private domestic sphere. Privacy claims in the semi-public area of work have not been sufficiently investigated. In (...) this article, the case is made that employees have reasonable expectations on privacy at work. Firstly, in a descriptive analysis, employees’ need for workspace privacy is spelt out. Secondly, a normative analysis explicates the reasons why privacy should be protected. The main thrust is to provide a more inclusive privacy concept and hence, a more adequate basis for privacy protection legislation and codes in the area of work. Contrary to prevailing workplace privacy protection, employees’ need for local privacy should be accommodated as well as informational privacy. (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.

We all know that Google stores huge amounts of information about everyone who uses its search tools, that Amazon can recommend new books to us based on our past purchases, and that the U.S. government engaged in many data-mining activities during the Bush administration to acquire information about us, including involving telecommunications companies in monitoring our phone calls. Control over access to our bodies and to special places, like our homes, has traditionally been the focus of concerns about privacy, but (...) access to information about us is raising new challenges for those anxious to protect our privacy. In _Privacy Rights,_ Adam Moore adds informational privacy to physical and spatial privacy as fundamental to developing a general theory of privacy that is well grounded morally and legally. (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)

In a recent article in Respublica, Jesper Ryberg argues that CCTV can be compared to a little old lady gazing out onto the street below. This article takes issue with the claim that government surveillance can be justified in this manner. Governments have powers and responsibilities that little old ladies lack. Even if CCTV is effective at preventing crime, there may be less intrusive ways of doing so. People have a variety of legitimate interests in privacy, and protection for these (...) is important to their status as free and equal citizens. Consequently, though necessary, effectiveness is insufficient to justify CCTV in a democracy. (shrink)

From the Supreme Court to the bedroom, privacy is an intensely contested interest in our everyday lives and privacy law. Some people appeal to privacy to protect such critical areas as abortion, sexuality, and personal information. Yet, privacy skeptics argue that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. I argue that we cannot abandon the concept of privacy. If we wish to avoid extending this elusive concept to cover too much of our lives or shrinking it to (...) cover too little, we must come to understand it. After exploring the privacy arguments of philosophers and constitutional and tort privacy law, I argue for a new definition of privacy and an explanation of its value that clarifies and resolves many of our conflicts. Privacy is critical because it allows us to protect a realm in which we can have intimate relations with others. (shrink)

This article considers the question of whether it is meaningful to speak of privacy rights in public spaces, and the possibility of such rights framing the basis for regulating or restricting the use of surveillance technologies such as closed circuit television (CCTV). In particular, it responds to a recent article by Jesper Ryberg that suggests that there is little difference between being watched by private individuals and CCTV cameras, and instead argues that state surveillance is qualitatively different from (and more (...) problematic than) surveillance by ‘lonely old ladies’. (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)

This paper analyzes ethical aspects of the new paradigm of Ambient Intelligence, which is a combination of Ubiquitous Computing and Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI’s). After an introduction to the approach, two key ethical dimensions will be analyzed: freedom and privacy. It is argued that Ambient Intelligence, though often designed to enhance freedom and control, has the potential to limit freedom and autonomy as well. Ambient Intelligence also harbors great privacy risks, and these are explored as well.

'Anita L. Allen breaks new ground...A stunning indictment of women's status in contemporary society, her book provides vital original scholarly research and insight.' |s-NEW DIRECTIONS FOR WOMEN.

This book attacks the assumption found in moral philosophy that social control as such is an intellectually and morally destructive force. It replaces this view with a richer and deeper perspective on the nature of social character aimed at showing how social freedom cannot mean immunity from social pressure. The author demonstrates how our competence as rational and social agents depends on a constructive adaptation of social control mechanisms. Our facility at achieving our goals is enhanced, rather than undermined, by (...) social control. The author then articulates sources, contracts, and degrees of legitimate social control in different social and historical settings. Drawing on a wide range of material in moral and political philosophy, law, cognitive and social psychology, anthropology and literature, Professor Schoeman shows how the aim of moral philosophy ought to be to understand our social character, not to establish fortifications against it in the name of rationality and autonomy. (shrink)

This study offers a systematic reconstruction of the theoretical foundations and framework of critical social theory. It is Habermas' "magnum opus", and it is regarded as one of the most important works of modern social thought. In this second and final volume of the work, Habermas examines the relations between action concepts and systems theory and elaborates a framework for analyzing the developmental tendencies of modern societies. He discusses in detail the work of Marx, Durkheim, G.H. Mead and Talcott Parsons, (...) among others. By distinguishing between social systems and what he calls the "life-world", Habermas is able to analyze the ways in which the development of social systems impinges upon the symbolic and subjective dimensions of social life, resulting in the kind of crises, conflicts and protest movements which are characteristic of advanced capitalist societies in the late-20th century. (shrink)

This new book by Beate Rossler is a work of real quality and originality on an extremely topical issue: the issue of privacy and the relations between the private and the public. Rossler investigates the reasons why we value privacy and why we ought to value it. In the context of modern, liberal societies, Rossler develops a theory of the private which links privacy and autonomy in a constitutive way: privacy is a necessary condition to lead an autonomous life. The (...) book develops a theory of freedom and autonomy which sees the ability to pose the "practical question" of how one wants to live, of what a person strives to be, at the centre of the modern idea of autonomy. The question of privacy is emerging as an increasingly important topic in social and political theory and is central to many current debates in law, the media and politics. The Value of Privacy will be widely recognised to be a classic contribution to the subject. (shrink)

Agency and identity -- Necessitation -- Acts and actions -- Aristotle and Kant -- Agency and practical identity -- The metaphysics of normativity -- Constitutive standards -- The constitution of life -- In defense of teleology -- The paradox of self-constitution -- Formal and substantive principles of reason -- Formal versus substantive -- Testing versus weighing -- Maximizing and prudence -- Practical reason and the unity of the will -- The empiricist account of normativity -- The rationalist account of normativity (...) -- Kant on the hypothetical imperative -- Against particularistic willing -- Deciding and predicting -- Autonomy and efficacy -- The function of action -- The possibility of agency -- Non-rational action -- Action -- Attribution -- The psychology of action -- Expulsion from the garden : the transition to humanity -- Instinct, emotion, intelligence, and reason -- The parts of the soul -- Inside or outside -- Pull yourself together -- The constitutional model -- Models of the soul -- The city and the soul -- Platonic virtues -- Justice : substantive, procedural, and platonic -- Kant and the constitutional model -- Defective action -- The problem of bad action -- Being governed by the wrong law -- Or five bad constitutions -- Conceptions of evil -- Degrees of action -- Integrity and interaction -- Deciding to be bad -- The ordinary cases -- Dealing with the disunified -- Kant's theory of interaction -- My reasons -- Deciding to treat someone as an end in himself -- Interacting with yourself -- How to be a person -- What's left of me? (shrink)