Abstract

Privacy involves a zone of inaccessibility in a particular context. In social discourse it pertains to activities that are not public, the latter being by definition knowable by outsiders. The public domain so called is the opposite of secrecy and somewhat less so of confidentiality. The private sphere is respected in law and morality, now in terms of a right to privacy. In law some violations of privacy are torts. Philosophers tend to associate privacy with personhood. Professional relationships are prima facie private but may be investigated for cause. Privacy may entail both intimacy and caring but neither necessarily so. Finally, various technology-based means of intrusion are rendering privacy ever more difficult to sustain.