This article analyses proportionality as a potential element of a theory of morally justified surveillance, and sets out a teleological account. It draws on conceptions in criminal justice ethics and just war theory, defines teleological proportionality in the context of surveillance, and sketches some of the central values likely to go into the consideration. It then explores some of the ways in which deontologists might want to modify the account and illustrates the difficulties of doing so. Having set out the (...) account, however, it considers whether the proportionality condition is necessary to a theory of morally justified surveillance. The article concludes that we need and should apply only a necessity condition, but notes that proportionality considerations may retain some use in in practice, as a form of coarse‐grained filter applied before assessing necessity when deliberating the permissibility of potential forms of surveillance. (shrink)

This article develops a framework for analyzing and comparing privacy and privacy protections across (inter alia) time, place, and polity and for examining factors that affect privacy and privacy protection. This framework provides a method to describe precisely aspects of privacy and context and a flexible vocabulary and notation for such descriptions and comparisons. Moreover, it links philosophical and conceptual work on privacy to social science and policy work and accommodates different conceptions of the nature and value of privacy. The (...) article begins with an outline of the framework. It then refines the view by describing a hypothetical application. Finally, it applies the framework to a real‐world privacy issue—campaign finance disclosure laws in the United States and France. The article concludes with an argument that the framework offers important advantages to privacy scholarship and for privacy policy makers. (shrink)

Western ethics and law have been slow to come to conclusions about the right to choose the time and manner of one's death. However, policies, practices, and legal precedents have evolved quickly in the last quarter of the twentieth century, from the forgoing of respirators to the use of Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders, to the forgoing of all medical technologies (including hydration and nutrition), and now, in one U.S. state, to legalized physician-assisted suicide. The sweep of history—from the Quinlan (...) case in New Jersey to legislation in Oregon that allows physician-assisted suicide—has been as rapid as it has been revolutionary. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend what we call the ‘Hybrid View’ of privacy. According to this view, an individual has privacy if, and only if, no one else forms an epistemically warranted belief about the individual’s personal matters, nor perceives them. We contrast the Hybrid View with what seems to be the most common view of what it means to access someone’s personal matters, namely the Belief-Based View. We offer a range of examples that demonstrate why the Hybrid View is (...) more plausible than the Belief-Based View. Finally, we show how the Hybrid View generates a more plausible fit between the concept of privacy, and the concept of a (morally objectionable) violation of privacy. (shrink)

Human rights have increasingly been put forward as an important framework for bioethics. In this paper, it is argued that human rights offer a potentially fruitful approach to understanding the notion of Respect for Persons in bioethics. The idea that we are owed a certain kind of respect as persons is relatively common, but also quite often understood in terms of respecting people’s autonomous choices. Such accounts do however risk being too narrow, reducing some human beings to a second-class moral (...) status. This paper puts forward a political approach to our standing as persons and a strongly pluralistic account of human rights that lays the ground for a more broadly applicable conception of Respect for Persons. It is further argued that this model also provides an example of a more general approach to philosophical ethics, an approach which is here called taxonomical pluralism. When it comes to Respect for Persons specifically, this principle is developed in terms of five distinct core concerns. (shrink)

Questions of privacy have become particularly salient in recent years due, in part, to information-gathering initiatives precipitated by the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, increasing power of surveillance and computing technologies, and massive data collection about individuals for commercial purposes. While privacy is not new to the philosophical and legal literature, there is much to say about the nature and value of privacy. My focus here is on the nature of informational privacy. I argue that the predominant accounts of privacy (...) are unsatisfactory and offer an alternative: for a person to have informational privacy is for there to be limits on the particularized judgments that others are able to reasonably make about that person. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction: Promise and Perils The History of Privacy as a Moral Concept Genetic Exceptionalism The Moral Basis of Medical Privacy Rights Genetic Paternalism Conclusion.

The essay proposes to use alienation as a heuristic and conceptual tool for the analysis of the impact of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) on users. It follows a historical materialist understanding, according to which data can be considered as things produced in an industrial fashion. A representational interpretation, according to which data would merely reflect a given reality, is untenable. It will be argued instead to understand data as an additional layer which has a transformative impact on reality (...) as a whole. The analysis follows the early Marx in thinking of alienation as a structural condition which holds even if it is not experienced psychologically by users. Alienation means that the desire to express oneself and achieve social recognition, self-realization, and participation through the use of ICTs is incongruent to the inherent purposes and functions of these technologies. Digital platforms create the ideological illusion that users contribute to the production of data solely for their own gratification. Users, in turn, react to structural alienation either by internalizing it, in which case they may become enthusiastic data producers, or by imposing alienating conditions on other users. Finally, it will be shown that a strong notion of privacy is less suited to articulate concerns about the impact of ICTs because it expresses a desire for privilege and individual control which has become unfulfillable in the environment of data industries. The essay closes by showing some of the changes in institutional structures and behavior that could follow from the focus on alienation. (shrink)

Privacy is a basic and foundational human good meriting moral and legal protection. Privacy isn’t, however, everything. Other goods and values matter, too (Solove 2003; Ma...