Solutions to the problem ofprotecting informational privacy in cyberspacetend to fall into one of three categories:technological solutions, self-regulatorysolutions, and legislative solutions. In thispaper, I suggest that the legal protection ofthe right to online privacy within the USshould be strengthened. Traditionally, inidentifying where support can be found in theUS Constitution for a right to informationalprivacy, the point of focus has been on theFourth Amendment; protection in this contextfinds its moral basis in personal liberty,personal dignity, self-esteem, and othervalues. On (...) the other hand, the constitutionalright to privacy first established by Griswoldv. Connecticut finds its moral basis largelyin a single value, the value of autonomy ofdecision-making. I propose that an expandedconstitutional right to informational privacy,responsive to the escalating threats posed toonline privacy by developments in informationaltechnology, would be more likely to find asolid moral basis in the value of autonomyassociated with the constitutional right toprivacy found in Griswold than in the varietyof values forming the moral basis for the rightto privacy backed by the Fourth Amendment. (shrink)

Definition of the problemThe concept of privacy has been astonishingly absent in the discussion about dementia care. In general, questions of privacy receive a lot of attention in nursing ethics; however, when it comes to dementia care, hardly any systematic ethical debate on the topic can be found. It almost seems as though people with dementia had lost any comprehensible interest in privacy and no longer had any private sphere that needed to be considered or protected. However, (...) this not only contradicts widespread moral intuitions but also ignores the views and needs of those affected.ArgumentsWe first outline the origins and dimensions of the concept of privacy and point out problems and limitations in the context of dementia. Especially the prevalent liberal conceptions’ dependence on the idea of autonomy poses significant challenges to an adequate conceptualization of the moral significance of privacy for people with dementia. Therefore, we subsequently explore alternative ways of conceptualizing the “value of privacy” in the context of dementia care.ConclusionAutonomy-based concepts of privacy may still be valid in the early stages of dementia. However, in the further course of the syndrome, the relevance of other normative aspects comes to the fore, especially respect for remaining personal preferences as well as objective criteria of dignity and well-being. Thus, we outline in a differentiated manner how and to what extent privacy can be of normative importance beyond the purview of autonomy and should consequently be taken into consideration in dementia care. (shrink)

Following the “control dilemma” of Collingridge, influencing technological developments is easy when their implications are not yet manifest, yet once we know these implications, they are difficult to change. This article revisits the Collingridge dilemma in the context of contemporary ethics of technology, when technologies affect both society and the value frameworks we use to evaluate them. Early in its development, we do not know how a technology will affect the value frameworks from which it will be evaluated, (...) while later, when the implications for society and morality are clearer, it is more difficult to guide the development in a desirable direction. Present-day approaches to this dilemma focus on methods to anticipate ethical impacts of a technology, being too speculative to be reliable, or on ethically regulating technological developments, discarding anticipation of the future implications. We present the approach of technological mediation as an alternative that focuses on the dynamics of the interaction between technologies and human values. By investigating online discussions about Google Glass, we examine how people articulate new meanings of the value of privacy. This study of “morality in the making” allows developing a modest and empirically informed form of anticipation. (shrink)

A case from 1996 in Oregon in which citizens' legally publicmotor vehicle information was disseminated on a World Wide Website is considered. The case evoked widespread moral outrageamong Oregonians and led to changes in the Oregon records laws.The application of either consequentialist ornon-consequentialist moral theories to this and otherinformational privacy cases is found to be inadequate.Adjudication of conflicting desires is offered as the appropriateanalytical model for moral disputes. The notion of adjudicationoffered here diverges from traditional (...) class='Hi'>moral theories in itsindeterminate nature. (shrink)

The moral significance of blockchain technologies is a highly debated and polarised topic, ranging from accusations that cryptocurrencies are tools serving only nefarious purposes such as cybercrime and money laundering, to the assessment of blockchain technology as an enabler for revolutionary positive social transformations of all kinds. Such technological determinism, however, hardly provides insights of sufficient depth on the moral significance of blockchain technology. This thesis argues rather, that very much like the cryptographic tools before them, blockchains develop (...) in a constant feedback loop. Blockchain applications are driven by values, normative assumptions, and personal commitments of researchers, which shape moral effects of technology. At the same time these very assumption are often embedded in preexisting moral conception and ethical theories, implicitly or explicitly accepted by blockchain developers. And just as the introduction of one flawed element in the cryptographic application can have mass scale effects, the introduction of flawed normative assumptions can have far reaching consequences in blockchain applications. This thesis argues that we should not take normative assumptions present in blockchain applications as given. Just like the open-source code is developed through the public revision and scrutiny, we should aim to make normative assumptions transparent and be ready to revise them in case we find some bugs. How can we qualify claims that blockchain technologies enable new types of institutions? Can blockchain technologies eliminate trust in complex socio-technical systems? What does individual sovereignty mean in the context of private data control and privacy? Whether property in private data enabled by blockchain applications can solve moral issues of privacy and commercial surveillance? Answers to these and other questions map some of the key normative assumptions present in the current blockchain applications and serve as a contribution to the open-source project of the future society built on the fundamental human values. (shrink)

This paper seeks to identify the distinctive moral wrong of stalking and argues that this wrong is serious enough to criminalize. We draw on psychological literature about stalking, distinguishing types of stalkers, their pathologies, and victims. The victimology is the basis for claims about what is wrong with stalking. Close attention to the experiences of victims often reveals an obsessive preoccupation with the stalker and what he will do next. The kind of harm this does is best understood in (...) relation to the value of privacy and conventionally protected zones of privacy. We compare anti-stalking laws in different jurisdictions, claiming that they all fail in some way to capture the distinctive privacy violation that stalking involves. Further reflection on the seriousness of the invasion of privacy it represents suggests that it is a deeply personal wrong. Indeed, it is usually more serious than obtrusive surveillance by states, precisely because it is more personal. Where state surveillance genuinely is as intrusive as stalking, it tends to adopt the tactics of the stalker, imposing its presence on the activist victim at every turn. Power dynamics —whether rooted in the power of the state or the violence of a stalker —may exacerbate violations of privacy, but the wrong is distinct from violence, threats of violence and other aggression. Nor is stalking a simple expression of a difference in power between stalker and victim, such as a difference due to gender. (shrink)

Given the evolution of the public health (PH) and the changes from the phenomenon of globalization, this area has encountered new ethical challenges. In order to find a coherent approach to address ethical issues in PH policy, this study aimed to identify the evolution of public health ethics (PHE) frameworks and the main moral values and norms in PH practice and policy. According to the research questions, a systematic search of the literature, in English, with no time limit was (...) performed using the main keywords in databases Web of Science (ISI) and PubMed. Finally, the full text of 56 papers was analyzed. Most of the frameworks have common underpinning assumptions and beliefs, and the need to balance PH moral obligation to prevent harm and health promotion with respect for individual autonomy has been specified. As such, a clear shift from liberal values in biomedical ethics is seen toward the community’s collective values in PHE. The main moral norms in PH practice and policy included protecting the population against harm and improving PH benefits, utility and evidenced-based effectiveness, distributive justice and fairness, respect for all, privacy and confidentiality, solidarity, social responsibility, community empowerment and participation, transparency, accountability and trust. Systematic review of PHE frameworks indicates utilization of the aforementioned moral norms through an practical framework as an ethical guide for action in the PH policy. The validity of this process requires a systematic approach including procedural conditions. (shrink)

Carol Pateman has said that the public/private distinction is what feminism is all about. I tend to be sceptical about categorical pronouncements of this sort, but this book is a work of feminist political philosophy and the public/private distinction is what it is all about. It is motivated by the belief that we lack a philosophical conception of privacy suitable for a democracy; that feminism has exposed this lack; and that by combining feminist analysis with recent developments in political (...) philosophy, we can meet the philosophical and political need for a distinctively democratic conception of privacy. This book then, is an effort to sketch and defend such a conception of privacy. It aims to show that while some conceptions of privacy are inconsistent with democracy, others are not. Indeed, the book asserts, the belief that privacy can be valuable and that it can justify basic legal rights, is implicit in a democratic conception of persons as free and equal beings, and a democratic conception of politics as the self-governing, or regulating, activity of such individuals. Just as we can and should reject undemocratic conceptions of the suffrage in favour of democratic ones, so the book maintains, we can and must reject undemocratic conceptions of privacy in favour of ones that reflect the moral equality of men and women, and a commitment to democratic forms of government. Democracy is often described as government by and for the people. On such a view, democracy is a political regime which can be contrasted with monarchies or aristocracies on the one hand, or with theocracies and despotisms on the other. By contrast with the former, it is a form of government that views individuals as citizens and as equal members of the agency which authorizes the use of political power. By contrast with the latter, it is a form of government whose purposes and aims are established by the common interests of individuals, conceived as free and equal citizens. It is my contention that there is a plausible and attractive conception of privacy implicit in this view of democracy. Hence, I show that individuals have fundamental interests in privacy because privacy enables them to participate in politics freely and as the equal of others and, beyond that, to lead lives that they can each affirm to be reasonable, valuable and right. As I think that the ideal of democratic government is properly associated with this latter and broader goal, as well as with the former one, I call my account of privacy a democratic conception of privacy to signal its connection to a particular ideal of politics, and to the conception of persons that makes this ideal a convincing and inspiring one. As this is a work of political philosophy, however, no effort is made to address the legal merits of competing accounts of the right to privacy, or to resolve legal dispute about the content and justification of particular constitutional rights in the United States. Thus, while I use Supreme Court decisions and works of legal theory to illustrate and support my arguments, my use of these materials is governed by philosophical concerns and my conclusions, therefore, are strictly of a philosophical, not a legal, nature. The book is divided into four chapters, moving from feminist criticisms of privacy to an engagement with the philosophical literature on privacy and an account of the right to privacy in a democratic society. It proceeds as follows. In Chapter 1, I examine feminist concerns about privacy, through a close reading of the work of Catherine MacKinnon. I argue that MacKinnon persuasively shows that protection for privacy has frequently licensed the coercion and subjection of women, and that her arguments are supported both by feminist scholarship, key Supreme Court decisions, and by familiar conceptions of privacy and equality. However, I argue, these criticisms do not imply that privacy, like slavery, can never be democratic, because wholly inconsistent with the equality of individuals. Rather, feminist criticisms of privacy suggest that privacy, like the suffrage, can be necessary to the equality of women and can have a legitimate and important place in a democratic society. In Chapter 2, I examine the philosophical literature on privacy in light of the need to distinguish democratic from undemocratic accounts of its nature and value. This literature, I show, can help us to provide an account of privacy that is sensitive both to its inegalitarian aspects and to its importance for a democratic commitment to the freedom and equality of women. However, I argue, we cannot embrace current philosophical accounts of privacy uncritically, because to a striking extent they are, themselves, indifferent to the ways that privacy has licensed sexual inequality. Thus, in Chapter 2, I set about interpreting privacy as a moral and political value, in light of the strengths and weaknesses of the philosophical literature on privacy. Their strength is that they show that there are many reasons for caring about privacy, or many ways in which we might define it as a democratic value. Their weakness is that they tend to assume that we must choose amongst these different conceptions of privacy, in order to provide a philosophically cogent account of privacy. This, I show, is a mistake and one that can be remedied by remembering that a commitment to the equality of individuals requires us to acknowledge the reasonable differences in value and interest that may characterize their relations in a democracy. When we do so, I show, it is possible to define privacy in terms of its protection for self-definition, intimacy and confidentiality, without having to choose between the three of them. For individuals may legitimately disagree about the differences between privacy and other values, even while holding that privacy is a distinctive and important democratic good; and they may also disagree about the importance of privacy compared to other goods, such as equality, without denying that self-definition, intimacy and confidentiality can be morally and politically desirable in a democracy. In Chapter 2, therefore, I show that we can provide a philosophically adequate account of what privacy is and why it is valuable without supposing that privacy is always sexually egalitarian, or denying that it has a distinctive place in a democratic conception of value. Chapter 3 then extends this account of privacy, by considering the justification for a legal right to privacy. Just as we cannot provide a democratic conception of privacy without attending to the different, though equally valid, concerns that individuals may have so, I show, we cannot provide a democratic account of privacy rights if we forget that individuals can, quite reasonably, differ in the importance that they attach to privacy. The result, I argue, is that we can distinguish two main reasons for protecting privacy by right in a democracy, the one personal and the other political. Whereas the former emphasizes the importance of self-definition, intimacy and confidentiality to the personal freedom and equality of individuals, the latter emphasizes their importance to their prospects for voluntary and equal participation in the processes of collective choice and deliberation that define a democratic government. These two justifications of privacy rights reflect the fact that in a democracy the personal can be political, as feminists have insisted, but need not be in order to merit protection by right. Indeed, I argue, we can distinguish democratic from undemocratic accounts of the right to privacy in this way: for whilst the former acknowledge the variety of individuals’ interests in personal and collective choice, the latter either collapse the political into the personal, or assume that the legitimate claims of individuals are merely a function of collective needs, interests and values. Neither of these is consistent with familiar assumptions about the nature and justification of democratic institutions and rights, nor can they be reconciled with a commitment to sexual equality. Thus, I conclude, though the fact that there are different justifications for privacy rights in a democracy means that individuals may legitimately disagree over the content and justification of basic rights, it is wrong to confuse democratic debate with moral or conceptual confusion and so, arbitrarily, to truncate our accounts of privacy, equality and democracy. Finally, in Chapter 4, I test and develop these claims by examining the justification for abortion rights in a democracy. I argue that women have legitimate interests in abortion, as well as in bearing children, because they have fundamental, and legitimate, interests in privacy and equality. Although safe and legal abortion is necessary to sexual equality, as feminists claim, I show that we can provide a convincing and democratic account of women’s claims to abortion only if we recognize women’s interests in self-definition, intimacy and confidentiality. This is because women have both personal and political interests in abortion and we will be unable adequately to identify these if we overlook their interests in privacy. Indeed, I show, the difference between democratic and undemocratic solutions to conflict over abortion lies precisely in this: that whereas the former acknowledge the importance of privacy to the personal and political equality of women, the latter overlook or deny this. As a result, the latter license both mandated abortions, although women have legitimate interests in bearing and raising children, and prohibitions on abortion that cannot be reconciled with the freedom and equality of women. That is not to say that abortion is not a politically significant matter, or that we can resolve moral conflict over abortion simply by giving women a legal right to abortion. Neither is the case. However, the chapter shows, in a democracy individuals are entitled to make morally and politically controversial decisions for themselves not simply because this is expedient or useful, but because this is right. To overlook this feature of democracy, I argue, is to make moral and political conflict utterly intractable by democratic means. Thus, while controversy over abortion has been held to show that privacy is an incoherent and undemocratic right, this chapter argues that it shows the reverse: for controversy over abortion makes clear that privacy is essential to democracy, and why this should be so. This overview of the book, I hope, makes clear that its concerns are methodological as well as substantive, and moral as well as political. Thus, its central methodological claim is that we cannot reconcile privacy with the equality of individuals unless we make a deliberate effort to do so. Its central moral and political claims are that privacy is compatible with the equality of individuals, and sufficiently important to the latter that, in a democracy, the privacy of individuals merits legal protection by right. However, this summary of the book also exposes its limitations. Chief amongst these, I fear, is that it provides no sustained discussion of the place of property on a democratic conception of privacy, and that the latter, itself, is rather a broad preliminary sketch than a polished and detailed portrait. I regard these limits on the scope and arguments of the book as limitations, albeit ones that I hope to be able to remedy before too long.However, limited though the book clearly is, I believe that it lays out the essential components of a democratic conception of privacy and that, by analysing and synthesizing several diverse bodies of literature, it may help those who are interested in the relations between privacy, equality and democracy. (shrink)

The right to genetic privacy is presently being incorporated in legal systems all over the world. It remains largely unclear however what interests and values this right serves to protect. There are many different arguments made in the literature, yet none takes into account the problem of how particular values can be justified given the plurality of moral and religious doctrines in our societies. In this article theories of public reason are used in order to explore how genetic (...) privacy could be justified in a way that is sensitive to the “fact of pluralism”. The idea of public reason is specified as the idea that governments should appeal only to values and beliefs that are acceptable to all reasonable citizens in the justification of rights. In examining prevalent arguments for genetic privacy – based on the value of autonomy or on the value of intimacy – it is concluded that they do not meet this requirement. In dealing with this deficiency in the literature, an argument is developed that genetic privacy is fundamental to the democratic participation of all citizens. By referring to the preconditions of democratic citizenship, genetic privacy can be justified in a way that respects the plurality of comprehensive doctrines of morality and religion in contemporary societies. (shrink)

This paper offers a general theory of privacy, a theory that takes privacy to consist in being free from certain kinds of intrusions. On this understanding, privacy interests are distinct and distinguishable from those in solitude, anonymity, and property, for example, or from the fact that others possess, with neither consent nor permission, personal information about oneself. Privacy intrusions have both epistemic and psychological components, and can range in value from relatively trivial considerations to those (...) of profound consequence for an individual’s dignity, integrity, and autonomy. Thus while the focus of this theory is privacy per se— privacy as being free from certain kinds of intrusions—it has significant implications, discussed briefly, for what properly counts as the content of moral or legal rights to privacy. (shrink)

This essay is a critique of LarryLessig's book, Code and other Laws ofCyberspace (Basic Books, 1999). Itsummarizes Lessig's theory of the fourmodalities of regulation in cyberspace: code,law, markets, and norms. It applies thistheory to the topics of privacy and speech,illustrating how code can undermine basicrights or liberties. The review raisesquestions about the role of ethics in thismodel, and it argues that ethical principlesmust be given a privileged position in anytheory that purports to deal with the shapingof behavior in cyberspace. (...) Finally, itproposes a philosophy of ethicalself-regulation instead of an over-reliance ongovernment policy to deal with certainimproprieties and negative externalities thattend to disrupt the Net. (shrink)

In February 2016, the Institute of Medicine released a report, commissioned by the United States Food and Drug Administration, on the ethical and social‐policy implications of so‐called three‐parent in vitro fertilization. The IOM endorses commencement of clinical trials on three‐parent IVF, subject to some initial limitations. Also called mitochondrial replacement or transfer, three‐parent IVF is an intervention comprising two distinct procedures in which the genetic materials of three people—the DNA of the father and mother and the mitochondrial DNA of an (...) egg donor—can be used to create a child. Three‐parent IVF would enable a woman with mitochondrial disease to have a genetically related child without transmitting the disease to the child. The possibility for three‐parent children has prompted criticism from many corners. Critics have pointed to ethical issues including safety concerns and risks to children, genetic and germline engineering concerns, the potential exploitation of the third‐parent egg donor, donor anonymity and privacy, and objections to creating babies with three parents, which undermines natural and traditional conceptions of procreation. Additionally, developing the technology would involve experimenting on, manipulating, and disposing of embryos. Although the IOM report considers the ethical concerns about the value of the three‐parent IVF technology, the IOM failed to give due attention to an important objection to the development of this technology: three‐parent IVF lacks the social value necessary to make investment of public resources in it ethical.Unlike the other concerns, this objection is not based on conservativism about new reproductive technologies or default favoritism of the status quo. I argue that the technology does not meet a plausible social value standard to render public research investment into its development ethical. Proponents of three‐parent IVF make inaccurate and exaggerated claims that it will eradicate mitochondrial disease and save lives. Were these claims true, proponents would have a strong case for the social value of the technology. But three‐parent IVF alone will not eradicate mitochondrial disease, and it will not save lives. Rather, it can create healthy lives. As I discuss, the moral distinction is crucial. Most importantly, investment in three‐parent IVF comes at the opportunity cost of researching treatment for mitochondrial disease that would benefit actual, living disease sufferers. (shrink)

This paper copes with a real-world classification problem related to the management of claims received in an insurance company. The way to obtain the classifier is not easy due to the high amount of missing values as well as the inherent imbalanced scenario within class labels. Once the data partition has been done, the training set is submitted to an intensive double grid search in order to obtain the most promising type of missing value imputation approach and then a (...) step ahead is done using the best method and it starts the next round of data mining strategies which now falls into data rebalancing umbrella. Again, a grid search from an undersampling and oversampling family with different settings is done taking into account only seen data. The training data obtained after the first grid search are now submitted to the second step according the second grid search in order to get the ready training set for the further classifier training. The main objective of the work is to find the best combination of data mining techniques that suits the data set with a pipeline containing two types of data preparation methods coming from different families. As an outcome, first the problem of the presence of missing values has been addressed and then the data rebalancing techniques has been applied. The study focuses on obtaining classifiers based on Bayesian and lazy approaches as well as decision trees, evaluated on metrics such as the area under the ROC curve (AUC), Cohen’s kappa, Accuracy and the F-measure, among others. The imputation by the mean the mode is preferable to the Expectation Maximization Imputation in the scenario faced in this paper taking into account that the amount of missing values is higher than a forty percent for many features. (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)

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)

I present here a case against the evidentialist approach that claims that in so far as our interests are epistemic what should guide our belief formation and revision is always a strict adherence to the available evidence. I go on to make the stronger claim that some beliefs based on admittedly “insufficient” evidence may exhibit epistemic virtue. I propose that we consider a form of courage to be an intellectual or epistemic virtue. It is through this notion of courage that (...) we can see a weakness in the evidentialist position. Adopting a doxastically courageous approach allows us to acknowledge the role that evidence has in epistemic justification and its connection with promoting epistemic value, but it avoids the narrowness of an evidentialist position. The epistemically courageous agent is not one who disregards the evidence entirely, but she also realizes that taking risks will not necessarily keep her from her epistemic goals. Believing something in the face of insufficient evidence is not always an epistemic vice to be avoided, and the agent that recognizes this is better off for it. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of prison inmates' right to privacy from an ethical perspective. I argue that the right to privacy is important because of its connection to moral agency and that the protection of privacy is warranted by different established philosophical theories about the justification of legal punishment. I discuss the practical implications of this argument by addressing two potential problems. First, how much privacy should be allowed during imprisonment in order to meet (...) the criteria of respecting inmates as moral agents? Second, how should the conflict between privacy and other rights, including the rights of the public and the prison staff, as well as those of the prison inmates, be handled? Consequently, from an ethical perspective, the invasion of privacy should be minimized to the greatest extent possible without compromising other important values and rights to safety and security. In defending this position, I argue that respect for inmates' privacy should be part of the objective of creating and upholding a secure environment to better effect in the long run. (shrink)

Literature has been philosophically understood as a practice in the last thirty years, which involves “modes of utterance” and stances, not intrinsic textual properties. Thus, the place for semantics in philosophical inquiry has clearly diminished. Literary aesthetic appreciation has shifted its focus from aesthetic realism, based on the study of textual features, to ways of reading. Peter Lamarque’s concept of narrative opacity is a clear example of this shift. According to the philosophy of literature, literature, like any other art form, (...) does not compel us to engage realistically with it. Against this trend, this paper argues for the distinction between two kinds of opacity, defending textual opacity as a necessary condition for literary opacity. In this sense, examples in literary criticism properly illustrate not a peripheral role of meaning in literary appreciation, but arbitrariness in interpretation, which involves semantic concerns. So the assumed interest in the specific ways in which literature embeds meaning in fictional narrative works. (shrink)

Book review of Carlos Montemayor's "The Prospect of a Humanitarian Artificial Intelligence: Agency and Value Alignment" || Reseña del libro "The Prospect of a Humanitarian Artificial Intelligence: Agency and Value Alignment", escrito por Carlos Montemayor.

Prior research has shown the relationship between objective economic inequality and searching for positional goods. It also investigated the relationship between social class and low income with conspicuous consumption. However, the causal relationship between economic inequality has been less explored. Furthermore, there are also few studies looking for the psychological mechanisms that underlie these effects. The current research’s main goal is to analyze the consequences of perceived economic inequality on conspicuous and status consumption and the possible psychological mechanisms that could (...) explain its effects. Furthermore, the current research aims to examine whether there is a causal relationship between PEI and materialism preferences and attitudes toward indebtedness. This work includes two preregister experimental studies. In the Study 1, we manipulated PEI and its legitimacy through a 2 × 2 between-participants experiment. Results showed a main effect of PEI on status consumption, status seeking, status anxiety, materialism, and attitude toward indebtedness. No interaction effect between legitimacy and inequality was found. In the Study 2, we manipulated the PEI through the Bimboola Paradigm. We replicated the effect of PEI on status consumption, status seeking, and materialism and found that status seeking mediated the relationship between PEI and status and conspicuous consumption. Economic inequality affects consumer behavior and favors consumption preferences for products that provide desirable symbolic values associated with status. These results could have important implications in the interpersonal and intergroup processes, including those related to consumption and purchase. (shrink)

Knowledge of others, then, has value; so does immunity from being known. The ability to extend one's knowledge has value; so does the ability to limit other's knowledge of oneself. I have claimed that no interest can count as a right unless it clearly outweighs opposing interests whose presence is logically entailed. I see no way to establish that my interest in not being known, simply as such, outweighs your desire to know about me. I acknowledge the intuitive (...) attractiveness of such a position; but my earlier discussion concluded that the value of privacy is ease, and the value of knowledge is understanding - and it's not obvious that either outweighs the other. Nor is it obvious that the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to limit what others know is more significant than the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to extend one's knowledge. I believe the intuitive attractiveness of the belief that privacy values outweigh knowledge values lies in the entirely correct belief that a society without any privacy would be unpleasant. But a society without mutual knowledge would be impossible.I conclude therefore that there is no right to privacy nor to control over it. Nevertheless, each of these things is a good, and a good made possible (given the presence of other people) by social structures. A desirable society will provide both privacy and control over privacy to some extent. Nothing in my analysis helps determine what the proper extent is, nor what areas of life particularly deserve protection. Those who would argue that privacy and control over it are entailed by respect for persons should, I think, choose instead some particular areas central to being a person, to counting as a person, and then show how one is less likely to exercise one's capacities there fully without privacy or without control over it. Although Gerstein's attempt fails because he inaccurately defines intimacy as a kind of absorption and incorrectly opposes absorption with publicity, I think it is the kind of attempt which must be made. Furthermore, he has probably chosen the right area of life - if anything has a special claim to privacy it is probably the union between people who care for one another. The value of being together alone may be more significant than the value of being alone, if only because words and actions are public while thoughts are not. But I will not try to develop that argument here.In any case both privacy and control over it are social goods; on egalitarian grounds they should, ceteris paribus, be equally available to everyone. This helps explain the “dehumanizing” effect of institutions which provide no privacy at all- prisons and some mental institutions. It is not so much that the inmates are totally known; it is rather that those who know them are not so fully known by them; further, that the staff has a great deal of control over what they disclose of themselves, and the inmates very little. The asymmetry of knowledge in those institutions is one aspect of the asymmetry of power; the completely powerless are likely to feel dehumanized.My analysis also helps account for the wrongness of covert observation. It is not simply that the observer violates the wishes of the observed, for the question is whose wishes trump. The observer is violating the justified expectations of the observed: expectations supported by weighty social conventions. These have more moral weight than simple desires do. The peeping torn is violating a convention which structures the distribution of knowledge, a convention from which he benefits. Without it his own activities might well be impossible. He might be more easily caught; or his victim, less trusting, might choose houses without windows. More deeply, the thrill of what he is doing depends on the existence of the convention. Even morally permissible excitement - the suggestiveness of some clothing- would disappear without conventions about nudity. Presumably, too, there are elements of his own personal life for which he values his privacy. He is on grounds of justice obligated to observe the rule which makes his benefits possible.(Some claims to privacy result from personal predilections, rather than from convention. Parent describes a person who is extremely sensitive about being short, for instance, and does not want his exact height to be common knowledge. Parent, p. 346. The grounds for these claims are obviously different from those I've been discussing. The grounds are the moral obligation not to cause needless pain, or, if the information was given in confidence, to keep one's promises.) Although there is no right to privacy or to control over it as such, there is a right to equality of consideration and to a just distribution of benefits and burdens. To put it another way: there is no natural human right to privacy or to control over it; but a good society will provide some of each, and justice requires that the rules of a good society be observed. This paper was written during Joel Feinberg's 1984 NEH Summer Seminar. I am indebted to NEH for funding, and to Professor Feinberg and the other members of the seminar for helpful comments. (shrink)

Adoption of integrated pest management(IPM) practices in the Guatemalan highlands has beenlimited by the failure of researchers andextensionists to promote genuine farmer participationin their efforts. Some attempts have been made toredress this failure in the diffusion-adoptionprocess, but farmers are still largely excluded fromthe research process. Understanding farmers'agricultural knowledge must be an early step toward amore participatory research process. With this inmind, we conducted a semi-structured survey of 75Cakchiquel Maya farmers in Patzún, Guatemala, tobegin documenting their pest control practices. Theirresponses revealed (...) that their understanding ofbiological and curative pest control is limited.However, their broad knowledge of cultural preventivepest control practices could explain why they hadfaced few pest problems in their traditionalmilpa (intercrop of corn, beans, and other edibleplants). The majority of these preventive practicesare probably efficient and environmentallyinnocuous. (shrink)

Bodily privacy, understood as a right to control access to one’s body, capacities, and powers, is one of our most cherished rights − a right enshrined in law and notions of common morality. Informational privacy, on the other hand, has yet to attain such a loftily status. As rational project pursuers, who operate and flourish in a world of material objects it is our ability control patterns of association and disassociation with our fellows that afford each of us (...) the room to become distinct individuals. Privacy, whether physical or informational, is valuable for beings like us. Establishing the truth this claim will be the primary focus of this article. Providing reasons, evidence, and support for this claim will take us into the historical and cultural dimensions of privacy. (shrink)

A new variational method, the principle of least radix economy, is formulated. The mathematical and physical relevance of the radix economy, also called digit capacity, is established, showing how physical laws can be derived from this concept in a unified way. The principle reinterprets and generalizes the principle of least action yielding two classes of physical solutions: least action paths and quantum wavefunctions. A new physical foundation of the Hilbert space of quantum mechanics is then accomplished and it is used (...) to derive the Schrödinger and Dirac equations and the breaking of the commutativity of spacetime geometry. The formulation provides an explanation of how determinism and random statistical behavior coexist in spacetime and a framework is developed that allows dynamical processes to be formulated in terms of chains of digits. These methods lead to a new foundation for Lorentz transformations and special relativity. The Parker-Rhodes combinatorial hierarchy is encompassed within our approach and this leads to an estimate of the interaction strength of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces that agrees with the experimental values to an error of less than one thousandth. Finally, it is shown how the principle of least-radix economy naturally gives rise to Boltzmann’s principle of classical statistical thermodynamics. A new expression for a general nonequilibrium entropy is proposed satisfying the Second Law of Thermodynamics. (shrink)

Ethics of privacy is not a new but rather well developed topic especially in such areas as medical ethics and genome research. However it is safe to say that this problem is far less explored in moral philosophy. Namely there is a lack of consensus on Meta ethical status of privacy as moral value. This essay suggests some clarifications on the notion of privacy in the ethics of ICT and considers possible approaches to research (...) on privacy issues in ethics. Moral relativism suggests that privacy is a conventional value and it is possible to accept that it may become obsolete if confronted with changing social and cultural environment. Such approach also contributes to the view that privacy is an individual value and it may come in contradiction with societal values. Naturalistic approach on the other hand suggests that privacy is a value intrinsic to human nature, as it is deeply interrelated with phenomena of self-identity. Thus privacy is a crucial value not only to individual but to society as well. (shrink)

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature (...) to best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies. (shrink)

before i begin, i would like to express my considerable gratitude to Heldke, Orosco, and Stehn for their stimulating reading of my work and their considered critiques, and to the SAAP Coss Committee for taking pains to represent a community, identifying members in the spirit of the SAAP. Indeed I must parallel and reflect the words Heldke used: "It was just fun to read... about a place... [described] by a theoretical tradition I value" or Orosco locating my scholarship in (...) ancient debates between forms of reasoning about human behavior, or Stehn making me think how to better achieve the aspirations of my applied scholarship. Again, let me say, thanks to you all.Readers made... (shrink)

This paper attempts to delve into Wittgenstein’s unique notion of solipsism and its centrality in his proposal of transcendental ethics. Ethics for him is an enquiry into what is most valuable in one’s life; a very personal experience of values woven around the individual subject. We analyse the true nature of ethical in Wittgenstein’s writings and argue that it can only be understood through a close examination of the relation he proposes between self and the world. Our argument is rooted (...) around his unique notion of solipsism without a solipsistic self. This distinctive ontological relationship between self and the world explicates moral significance into the world and how morality is defined as deeply felt personal responses to life. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider the relationship between the rights to privacy and security and argue that, in a sense to be made somewhat more precise below, that threats to the right to security outweighs comparable threats to privacy. My argument begins with an assessment of ordinary case judgments and an explanation of the important moral distinction between intrinsic value (i.e., value as an end) and instrumental value (i.e., value as a means), arguing (...) that each approach assigns more moral value, other things being equal, to security interests than to privacy interests. I then consider the issue from with a number of mainstream approaches to normative theories of state legitimacy, including social contract theories (new and old), utilitarian theories, Scanlon's contractualism, and various communitarian theories assign security rights a higher place on the moral hierarchy than privacy rights. I then conclude that, under ordinary intuitions and each of these theories, security interests trump (or outweigh) privacy interests when the two come into “direct” conflict – although I make no attempt to give an algorithm or theory for answering the important question of when these interests come into direct conflict and how to weigh them when, say, minor interests in security conflict with major interests in privacy. (shrink)

The importance of the collective management of immaterial resources is a key variable in the valorisation of products in a post-industrial economy. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how, in post-industrial economies, it is possible to devise alternative forms of mediation between producers and consumers, such as organic farmers' markets, to curb the appropriation of rent by transnational and/or local business elites from the value created by immaterial resources. More specifically, we analyse those aspects of the collective (...) management of ethical values that, in the case of organic farmers' markets, can be a strategic source of competitive advantage for local producers. In this paper, the Ecomercado de Granada is studied as an example of mediation between production and consumption in a post-industrial economy. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Netherlands, patients have the legal right to make a request for euthanasia to their physician. However, it is not clear what it means in a moral sense for a physician to receive a request for euthanasia. The aim of this study is to explore the moral values of physicians regarding requests for euthanasia. MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with nine primary healthcare physicians involved in decision-making about euthanasia. The data were inductively analyzed which lead to the emergence (...) of themes, one of which was about values regarding end-of-life decisions.ResultsFour clusters of values related to euthanasia requests are described: values related to 1) the patient; 2) the family; 3) the physician; and 4) life and death. The data show that the participants value patient autonomy as a necessary but not sufficient condition for meeting a euthanasia request. A good relationship with the patient and the family are important. For the physician, the values physician autonomy, responsibility, understanding the patient and relief of suffering play a role. Life as an intrinsic good and a peaceful death are also important values.ConclusionThis study shows that next to patient autonomy and the relationship with the patient and the family, it is important for the participants to act in accordance with their professional values and to do justice to values related to life and death. The awareness of going against the intrinsic value of life is crucial, even if performing euthanasia may result in a feeling of relief or gratitude afterwards. (shrink)

This paper presents an argument for the value of privacy that is based on a purely negative concept of freedom only. I show that privacy invasions may decrease a person’s negative freedom as well as a person’s knowledge about the negative freedom she possesses. I argue that not only invasions that lead to actual interference, but also invasions that lead to potential interference (many cases of identity theft) constitute actual harm to the invadee’s liberty interests, and I (...) critically examine the courts’ reliance on a principle of ‘no harm, no foul’ in recent data breach cases. Using a number of insights from the psychology of human belief, I also show that the liberal claim for protection of privacy is strengthened by the observation that often the privacy invader cannot be held responsible for the influence on the invadee’s negative freedom. (shrink)

Maria Morales’s striking and thought-provoking argument in Perfect Equality is that John Stuart Mill’s egalitarianism unifies his practical philosophy and that this element of his thought has been neglected in recent revisionary scholarship. Placing Mill’s arguments for the substantive value of “perfect equality” in The Subjection of Women at the center of her analysis, Morales develops a distinctive interpretation of Mill as an egalitarian liberal. Morales also aims to counter many recent communitarian critiques of liberalism as founded upon a (...) conception of the self as atomistic and individualistic. Like other Mill scholars, Morales sees Mill’s liberalism as an appealing alternative to the dominant Rawlsian theory, and she offers Mill’s approach as a response to “the still popular view that liberalism is structurally incompatible with a rich conception of the human good, particularly with a substantive commitment to equality”. Mill’s theory is not “doggedly individualistic,” and it rejects the model of liberal social life as atomistic and abstract. The well-constituted communities of the title are based upon “sympathetic, cooperative, and egalitarian values”. (shrink)

As it comes to animal ethics, broad versions of contractualism are often used as a reason for excluding animals from the category of those with moral value in the individualistic sense. Ideas of “reciprocity” and “moral agency” are invoked to show that only those capable of understanding and respecting the value of others may have value themselves. Because of this, possible duties toward animals are often made dependent upon altruism: to pay regard to animals is (...) to act in an other-regarding manner instead of mutual benefit. There are three main versions of altruism in animal ethics. The first one of these is the most traditional, and emphasises benevolence as a source of moral regard. The second concentrates on the notion of value, and claims that animals have value in the individualistic sense despite being incapable of moral agency. The third resists overt theory-dependency, often included in the second version, and concentrates more on the elements of “context” and “identification”. Out of these, a combination of the last two is identified as the most fruitful basis for altruistic animal ethics. (shrink)

It is common to think that we would be morally better people if we never felt envy. Recently, some philosophers have rejected this conclusion by arguing that envy can often be directed toward unfairness or inequality. As such, they conclude that we should not suppress our feelings of envy. I argue, however, that these defenses only show that envy is sometimes morally permissible. In order to show that we would not be better off without envy, we must show how envy (...) is not merely morally permissible, but morally valuable. Here I provide a defense of envy's moral value. I argue that feelings of envy are integral to the value that moral agents place on the goods and talents that they judge to be central to a worthwhile life. (shrink)

This paper presents an argument for the value of privacy that is based on a purely negative concept of freedom only. I show that privacy invasions may decrease a person’s negative freedom as well as a person’s knowledge about the negative freedom she possesses. I argue that not only invasions that lead to actual interference, but also invasions that lead to potential interference (many cases of identity theft) constitute actual harm to the invadee’s liberty interests, and I (...) critically examine the courts’ reliance on a principle of ‘no harm, no foul’ in recent data breach cases. Using a number of insights from the psychology of human belief, I also show that the liberal claim for protection of privacy is strengthened by the observation that often the privacy invader cannot be held responsible for the influence on the invadee’s negative freedom. (shrink)

Background: Living with a renal disease often reduces quality of life because of the stress it entails. No attention has been paid to the moral challenges of living with renal disease. Objectives: To explore the moral challenges of living with a renal disease. Research design: A case study based on qualitative research. We used Walker’s ethical framework combined with narrative ethics to analyse how negotiating care responsibilities lead to a new perspective on moral issues. Participants and research (...) context: One case was chosen from 20 qualitative interviews with renal patients in the Netherlands. Ethical considerations: Several actions have been taken to ensure the informed consent, privacy, anonymity and confidentiality of the patient in this article. More details are offered in this article. The study has been conducted in line with the recommendations of the Medical Ethical Committee of the VU Medical Center. Findings: A renal disease can force people to change their identity, relationships, values and responsibilities. The case study illustrates the moral challenges confronting renal patients. Discussion and conclusion:: Moral issues can be raised by the changes to identities, relationships, values and responsibilities caused by renal disease. Support services for renal patients and their relatives should pay more attention to these issues in order to promote self-management. (shrink)

Business moral values are defined as the personal moral values held by individuals who are engaged in business interactions. Direct supervisors may play an important role in shaping the business moral values of their subordinates. Using 264 supervisor— subordinate dyadic data from Taiwanese organizations, the study investigated the relationships among supervisor business moral values, subordinate business moral values, subordinate organizational commitment, job performance, and attendance. The results indicated that supervisor business moral values were positively (...) associated with subordinate business moral values, and that the latter mediated the relationship between the former and subordinate outcomes. Implications for business moral values research are discussed. (shrink)

This chapter examines the relationship between the values of researchResearch and privacy in the context of medical research on patient data. An analytical framework is developed by interpreting the conception of privacyPrivacy advanced in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human RightsHuman rights by reference to the Principle of Generic ConsistencyPrinciple of Generic Consistency, seminally argued to be the supreme principle of moralityMoralityby Alan GewirthAlan Gewirth. This framework is used to uncloak the inequity of positions uncompromisingly prioritising research (...) values over privacy values or vice versa—research worship and consentConsent worship, respectively. We then apply this framework to three hypothetical studies to show how apparent conflicts between research and privacy values can be resolved. (shrink)

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature (...) to best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies. (shrink)

Altruism has often been thought to be the reason we treat animals with a certain moral respect. Animals are not moral agents who could reciprocally honour our well being, and because of this duties toward them are considered to be based on other-directed motivations. Altruism is a vague notion, and in the context of animals can be divided into at least three different alternatives. The first one equates altruism with benevolence or "kindness"; the second one argues altruism is (...) based on recognising inherent value in others; and the third one emphasises identification. Out of these three the first one seems the poorest, for it ultimately falls into egoism: we treat animals with respect out of a need to cultivate our "humanity". The second option is well justified and has been defended thoroughly in the field of animal ethics. Still, it has been criticised recently for being too theory-dependent and even abstract. The third alternative seems tempting in its willingness to give room to practice instead of emphasising abstract moral notions. However, this willingness also comes with a price, for it seems unclear what the mere concentration on contexts and practice can tell us about duties and norms. The main problem is fitting together identification as a practical grounds for moral sentiment with the need for "codified" and even abstract moral principles. One way to do this, the paper suggests, is to use a three-level approach that seeks to take both sides into account. (shrink)

A persistent problem in the dominant agricultural development model is the imposition of technologies without regard to local processes and cultures. Even with the recent shift towards sustainability and agroecology, initiatives continue to overlook local knowledge. In this article we provide analysis of agroecological soil management in the Maya-Achi territory of Guatemala. The Achí, subject to five decades of interventions and development, present an interesting case study for assessing the complementarities and tensions between traditional, generally preventative practices and external initiatives (...) which tend to be curative. Our findings reveal a complex farming system that continues to rely on ancestral knowledge and practices, many of which display a high potential for sustainability and are deeply embedded in local culture. While some new practices have been incorporated into the traditional system, abandonment rates are high, and some extension methods have been paternalistic. The Achí are thirsty for new ideas to help them confront their current, unprecedented challenges. However, future collaborations should be built on existing local knowledge, which has contributed to the development of preventative and restorative practices still in use. Introduced technologies must coincide with local needs and socioecological context in a manner that encourages beneficial synergies, as well as horizontal learning/teaching processes. (shrink)

Recent work on empathy has focused on the phenomenon of feeling on behalf of, or for, others, and on determining the role it ought to play in our moral lives. Much less attention, however, has been paid to ‘feeling-with.’ In this paper, I distinguish ‘feeling-with’ from ‘feeling-for.’ I identify three distinguishing features of ‘feeling-with,’ all of which serve to make it distinct from empathy. Then, drawing on work in feminist moral psychology and feminist ethics, I argue that ‘feeling-with’ (...) has unique moral value over and above ‘feeling-for.’ I end by rebutting some likely objections to the claim that ‘feeling-with’ is morally valuable. (shrink)

In recent years, a great deal of evidence has accumulated on the health risks and environmental impacts of some herbicides. Both conventional agriculture and agroecology are searching for alternatives to address the challenges posed by the consequences of herbicide use. In this search, peasant and indigenous agroecosystems have much to contribute since their crops evolved thousands of years ago together with diverse communities of weeds, and farmers have carried out sophisticated strategies to manage them. Through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, free (...) lists, and botanical collection, we document a milpa design that integrates and manages spontaneous vegetation to take advantage of its presence and minimize risks of crop loss. The objective of this article is to critically contrast agroecological mechanisms in this milpa design which matches the prevention principle with a set of recommendations recognized as preventive in conventional weed science. (shrink)

Often, when we share information about ourselves, we contribute to people learning personal things about others. This may happen because what we share about ourselves can be used to infer personal information about others. Such dependencies have become known as privacy dependencies in the literature. It is sometimes claimed that the scope of the right to privacy should be expanded in light of such dependencies. For example, some have argued that inferring information about others can violate their right (...) to privacy. Others have argued that sharing personal information about yourself that license such inferences can by itself violate the right to privacy. In this paper, we argue that the latter view should be rejected. (shrink)