The Monist: Vol. 91, No. 1, January 2008.

Allen, Anita A. ; Brennan, Geoffrey ; Francis, Leslie Pickering 等

The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit, ANITA A. ALLEN

Is there any reason not to spy on other people as necessary to get the facts straight, especially if you can put the facts you uncover to good use? To "spy" is secretly to monitor or investigate another's beliefs, intentions, actions, omissions, or capacities, especially as revealed in otherwise concealed or confidential conduct, communications and documents. By definition, spying involves secret, covert activity, though not necessarily lies, fraud or dishonesty. Nor does spying necessarily involve the use of special equipment, such as a tape recorder or high-powered binoculars. Use of a third party agent, such as a "private eye" or Central Intelligence Agency operative is not necessary for surveillance to count as spying. Spying is morally troublesome both because it violates privacy norms and because it relies on secrecy and, perhaps, nefarious deception. Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy-invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication--telephone, mobile phone, computer email--there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping. But covert surveillance conducted by amateur and professional spies still includes old-fashioned techniques of stealth, trickery and deception known a half century ago: shadowing by car, peeking at letters and diaries, donning disguises, breaking and entering, taking photographs, and tape recording conversations. The ethical examination of spying cannot be reduced to a conversation about reigning in the mischief potential of twenty-first century technology. We do need to concern ourselves with what tomorrow's spies will do with nanotechnology, but plenty of spying is possible with the time-tested techniques of the Baby Boomers, or even, for that matter, the Victorians.

The philosophical problem which Anita Allen wishes to consider here is the ethical limits of spying on others, when the reasons for spying are good. She explores the plausibility of three interrelated ideas. The first idea is one she will call the anti-spying principle: spying on other adults is prima facie unethical. The second idea is an exception to the anti-spying principle: spying on others is ethically permissible, even mandatory, in certain situations, where the ends are good. The third and final idea is a constraint on exceptions to the anti-spying principle: where spying is ethically permitted or required, there are ethical limits on the methods of spying. The virtuous spy will violate privacy and transparency norms, of course; but he or she will, to the extent possible, continue to act with respect for the moral autonomy and for the moral and legal interests of the investigative target.

The Economy of Privacy: Institutional Design in the Economy of Esteem, GEOFFREY BRENNAN

Privacy and Confidentiality: The Importance of Context, LESLIE PICKERING FRANCIS

Cultural Privacy, CHANDRAN KUKATHAS

Privacy Without the Right to Privacy, SCOTT A. ANDERSON

A Distributive Reductionism about the Right to Privacy, DAVID MATHESON

Ignorance theorists about privacy hold that it amounts to others' ignorance of one's personal information. In this article, David Matheson argues that ignorance theorists should adopt a distributive reductionist approach to the "right to privacy," according to which it is reducible to elements that, despite having something significant in common, are distributed across more fundamental rights to person, liberty, and property. The distributed reductionism that I present carries two important features. First, it is better suited than its competitors to explain a "sense of scatter" that many have about the right to privacy. Second, it warrants caution about claims to the effect that the right to privacy is to be sharply distinguished from such rights as the right to liberty and the right to property.

Privacy, Separation and Control, STEVE MATTHEWS

Defining privacy is problematic because the condition of privacy appears simultaneously to require separation from others, and the possibility of choosing not to be separate. This latter feature expresses the inherent normative dimension of privacy: the capacity to control the perceptual and informational spaces surrounding one's person. Clearly the features of separation and control as just described are in tension because one may easily enough choose to give up all barriers between oneself and the public space. How could the capacity for privacy give rise to its absence? Yet both the separation and control features of privacy do seem indispensable to any sensible understanding of it. In this paper, Steve Matthews sets out an approach to defining privacy that keeps these features and avoids the tension between them.

Group Privacy and Government Surveillance of Religious Services, TRAVIS DUMSDAY

Can groups possess privacy? Is the notion of 'group privacy' simply an oxymoron? In this paper, Travis Dumsday argues that it is not, that groups can possess and lose privacy, and that this is not reducible to privacy loss on the part of individuals. He examines these issues in the context of considering whether government surveillance of religious services (which are often thought of as public events) ought to be considered a privacy issue, and if so under what conditions such surveillance might be justified.