Abstract
We have seen that people understand privacy in many different ways and any scholar who sets out to define it per genus et differentiam ends up in a privacy ‘swamp’. This is because the theory of induction is illogical. Moreover, in any attempt to provide a universal definition of privacy, agent-relativity remains an obstacle that the scholar cannot overcome. Our task therefore is to refine privacy—we must reflect on the shared experiences that make up its content. This task takes on added significance in legal scholarship because relatively little attention is paid in legal treatises to the value and nature of privacy
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- 1.
There are exceptions. Solove, for instance, provides a thoughtful analysis of privacy’s value. See Solove, Understanding Privacy (2009).
- 2.
See Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (2000) pp 213–214.
- 3.
Arendt, The Human Condition (1999) p 38.
- 4.
Ibid. Similarly, as Duby explains, in the Middle Ages, a person who willingly chose to be alone, to ‘remove himself from the close and omnipresent conviviality…immediately became an object of suspicion’, usually considered a criminal or a heretic. It was ‘commonly believed that solitary wandering was a symptom of insanity.’ Isolation made the person ‘more vulnerable to the Enemy’s attacks.’ See Duby, ‘Solitude’ (1988) p 510.
- 5.
Veyne, ‘The Roman Empire’ (1987) p 95.
- 6.
Ibid p 163.
- 7.
Ibid p 173.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
See Brown, ‘Late Antiquity’ (1987).
- 11.
Ibid p 253.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid p 254.
- 14.
Ibid p 288. ‘Singleness of heart’ was thus the ideal. Later in his essay, Brown goes on to explain that the ‘prestige of the monk lay in the fact that he was the ‘lonely one’. He personified the ancient ideal of singleness of heart. He has renounced the world in the most starkly visible manner possible.’
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid p 254.
- 17.
More, Utopia (2002) p 59.
- 18.
Apparently, there are also communities that do not have an understanding of any form of privacy in the first place. Räikkä, drawing on the work of Goncalves, provides the examples of the Paresi Indian communities in Brazil, in which brothers ‘share’ wives and the Yine Indian communities in Peru, in which ‘strangers may touch a woman’s breast in order to evaluate her ability to feed children.’ See Räikkä, ‘Is Privacy Relative?’ (2008) at 535 citing Goncalves, ‘A Woman between Two Men and a Man between Two Women’ (2001).
- 19.
See Bettelheim, ‘The Right to Privacy is a Myth’, Saturday Evening Post, July 27, 1968, at 8, cited by Solove, Understanding Privacy (2009), p 81.
- 20.
Braunstein, ‘Toward Intimacy’ (1988) p 536.
- 21.
Duby explains that at the beginning of the Middle Ages, members of the community ‘entrusted their deliverance from civil to delegated representatives’ e.g. monks would pray for the souls of the community. But over the course of the thirteenth century, in particular, ‘private devotion’ became more common. The Fourth Lateran Council Declaration of 1215 illustrates this point. Until 1215, confession used to be ‘rare and public.’ But the Lateran Council required every person, peer and commoner alike, to study his own soul and confess his intimate sins in private to a priest. This combined with the practice of consuming the body of Christ for ‘an intimate encounter’ had the effect of ‘magnif[ing] the human person’ as an individual. See Duby, ‘Solitude’ (1988) pp 528–531.
- 22.
Duby, ‘Solitude’ (1988) p 533.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
Nagel, ‘Concealment and Exposure’ (1998) at 4.
- 26.
Bloustein, ‘Privacy as an Aspect of Human Dignity’ (1964) at 1003.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Griffin, On Human Rights (2008) p 225.
- 29.
Mill, On Liberty (1863) pp 28–29.
- 30.
Nagel, ‘Concealment and Exposure’ (1998) at 4.
- 31.
Vlastos, ‘Justice and Equality’ (1984) p 50.
- 32.
Griffin, On Human Rights (2008) p 45.
- 33.
On normative agency see generally Griffin, On Human Rights (2008).
- 34.
Solove, Understanding Privacy (2008) p 81.
- 35.
Solove quotes the sociologist Steven Nock who argues that ‘[t]rust and the ability to take others at their word are basic ingredients in the social order.’ See Nock, The Costs of Privacy (1993) cited by Solove, ibid p 81.
- 36.
Posner, ‘The Right of Privacy’ (1978).
- 37.
R (Simms) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2000] 2 AC 115, at 126 (per Lord Steyn).
- 38.
See Emerson, The System of Freedom of Expression (1970).
- 39.
Emerson, ‘Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment’ (1963) at 884.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Larson & Chastain, ‘Self-concealment’ (1990).
- 42.
Cole et al, ‘Elevated physical health risk among gay men who conceal their homosexual identity’ (1996).
- 43.
Arendt, The Human Condition (1999) p 58.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
On ichbewusstsein see Jaspers, Allgemeine Psychopathologie (1913).
- 46.
Schilpp, The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (1957) p 263.
- 47.
Mead, Mind, Self, & Society (1934).
- 48.
Nagel, ‘Concealment and Exposure’ (1998) at 18.
- 49.
Kateb argues that we are doomed to an ‘incomplete and imperfect understanding of the human psyche and hence of human life because of human inwardness.’ See Kateb, Human Dignity (2011) pp 157–158.
- 50.
Mead, Mind, Self, & Society (1934) p 324.
- 51.
Ibid.
- 52.
Kateb refers to ‘commonness and distinctiveness’ in writing about personal identity. Even though he says they ‘seem to go in opposite directions’, ‘they cooperate in constituting the idea of equal individual status.’ See Kateb, Human Dignity (2011) p 10.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
Dworkin, Life’s Dominion (1993) p 236.
- 55.
Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (2011) p 45.
- 56.
See generally Whitman, ‘The Two Western Cultures of Privacy’ (2004).
- 57.
Waldron ‘Dignity and Rank’ (2007) at 230.
- 58.
Ibid at 201.
- 59.
This is because every member of humanity ‘deserves to be treated in a manner consonant with the high worth of the species.’ See Kateb, Human Dignity (2011) p 3.
- 60.
Rousseau, The Social Contract (1997) p 54.
- 61.
Baynes, ‘Freedom and Recognition in Hegel and Habermas’ (2002) at 2.
- 62.
See generally Leuze, Die Entwicklung des Persönlichkeitsrechts im 19. Jahrhundert (1962).
- 63.
Whitman, ‘The Two Western Cultures of Privacy’ (2004) at 1181.
- 64.
Baynes, ‘Freedom and Recognition in Hegel and Habermas’ (2002) at 2.
- 65.
Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, § 36.
- 66.
Hegel, Logic (1975) 24A quoted by Baynes, ‘Freedom and Recognition in Hegel and Habermas’ (2002) at 1.
- 67.
Singer, ‘Hegel’ (1995) p 341.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Ibid.
- 71.
Whitman, ‘The Two Western Cultures of Privacy’ (2004) at 1181.
- 72.
Ibid.
- 73.
Ibid at 1182.
- 74.
Radin, Contested Commodities (2001) pp 60–78.
- 75.
Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1999) p 8.
- 76.
Our non-ideal reality becomes ‘more tractable in the light of [the ideal theory].’ Ibid pp 8–9.
- 77.
See Kumm, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Total Constitution?’ (2006).
- 78.
BVerfGE 39, 1, 67 = NJW 1975, 573 573 (Schwangerschaftsabbruch I).
- 79.
Beckmann et al, ‘Germany’ (2010) p 266.
- 80.
Ibid p 259.
- 81.
Eberle ‘Human Dignity, Privacy, and Personality in German and American Constitutional Law’ (1997) at 973.
- 82.
Ibid.
- 83.
BVerfGE 115, 118 = NJW 2006, 751 (Luftsicherheitsgesetz).
- 84.
Ibid.
- 85.
Habermas, ‘The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights’ (2010) at 465.
- 86.
383 US 75, 92 (1966) (Stewart, J, concurring).
- 87.
Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1999) p 9.
- 88.
Reiter, ‘Personality and Patrimony’ (2002) at 674.
- 89.
Radin, Contested Commodities (2001) p 4.
- 90.
Ibid p 9.
- 91.
Ibid p 8.
- 92.
Ibid p 9.
- 93.
Ibid pp 34–40.
- 94.
Hobbes, Leviathan, pt I, ch 10.
- 95.
Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (2011) p 42.
- 96.
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, para 65, quoted by Radin, Contested Commodities (2001) p 35.
- 97.
Ibid p 35.
- 98.
Kant, The Doctrine of Right, pp 68–71; Hegel, Philosophy of Right, pp 41–71, cited by Radin, Contested Commodities (2001) p 35.
- 99.
Kant, Lectures on Ethics, p 165, quoted by Radin, ibid at 36.
- 100.
Ibid p 40 citing para 66R of Hegel, Philosophy of Right.
- 101.
Ibid p 40.
- 102.
Radin, Contested Commodities (2001) p 234.
- 103.
Ibid p 54.
- 104.
Ibid p 63.
- 105.
Ibid p 115.
- 106.
Ibid p 112.
- 107.
Prosser, ‘Privacy’ (1960) at 406.
- 108.
Post, ‘The Social Foundations of Defamation Law’ (1986) at 692.
- 109.
Ibid at 694.
- 110.
Ibid at 696.
- 111.
Ibid.
- 112.
Ibid at 699–700.
- 113.
Ibid at 700 quoting Davis, People of the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology (1977) p 98.
- 114.
Post, ‘The Social Foundations of Defamation Law’ (1986) at 700.
- 115.
Ibid at 701 quoting Berger, Berger & Kellner, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (1973) p 90.
- 116.
Cairns, ‘Honour and Shame’ (2011).
- 117.
Post, ‘The Social Foundations of Defamation Law’ (1986) at 701.
- 118.
Ibid at 702.
- 119.
Ibid.
- 120.
Ibid.
- 121.
Ibid at 707.
- 122.
Farge, ‘The Honor and Secrecy of Families’ (1989) p 579.
- 123.
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1977) para 178.
- 124.
A similar argument has been advanced by the social historian Amos Funkenstein. See Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (1993) p 5.
- 125.
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1977) para 508.
- 126.
Forster, Hegel’s Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit (1998) p 84.
- 127.
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1977) para 177.
- 128.
Mead, Mind, Self, & Society (1934) p 324.
- 129.
Ibid.
- 130.
BVerfGE 30, 173, 193 = NJW 1971, 1645 (Mephisto).
- 131.
BVerfGE 45, 187, 227 = NJW 1977, 1525 (Lebenslange Freiheitsstrafe).
- 132.
Eberle ‘Human Dignity, Privacy, and Personality in German and American Constitutional Law’ (1997) at 975. Eberle argues that it is not the community but the individual autonomous person who determines the ‘norms and values’ of the American social order. He argues that the best example of this is the concept of free speech. But given that ichbewusstsein is only possible when the community recognises it, can we not respond to Eberle’s argument by saying that free speech is an expression of the general will in the United States?
- 133.
Postema, Bentham and the Common Law Tradition (1986) p 63, quoting Blackstone (1 Comm 442).
- 134.
Ibid p 66.
- 135.
On this point see O’Callaghan, ‘Monologism and Dialogism in Private Law’ (2010).
- 136.
Post, ‘The Social Foundations of Defamation Law’ (1986).
- 137.
Gibbons, ‘Defamation Reconsidered’ (1996) at 592.
- 138.
McNamara, Reputation and Defamation (2007).
- 139.
Post, ‘The Social Foundations of Defamation Law’ (1986) at 693.
- 140.
Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1999) pp 90–95.
- 141.
See Campbell v MGN [2004] 2 AC 457. See also Moreham ‘Privacy in the Common Law’ (2005).
- 142.
Pound, ‘Interests of Personality’ (1915) at 354.
- 143.
Caney, ‘Liberalism and Communitarianism’ (1992).
- 144.
In liberal democracy there is tension between interests in privacy and freedom of expression. But though they are frequently portrayed as opposites, privacy and free expression are interdependent. Westin makes this point: ‘This development of individuality is particularly important in democratic societies, since qualities of independent thought, diversity of views, and non-conformity are considered desirable traits for individuals. Such independence requires time for sheltered experimentation and testing of ideas, for preparation and practice in thought and conduct, without fear of ridicule or penalty, and for the opportunity to alter opinions before making them public.’ See Westin, Privacy and Freedom (1967) p 34.
- 145.
Ibid.
- 146.
See O’Callaghan, ‘Monologism and Dialogism in Private Law’ (2010).
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O’Callaghan, P. (2013). Three Conjectures About Privacy. In: Refining Privacy in Tort Law. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31884-9_2
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