How much privacy for public officials?

Towards a democracy-centred ethics

“…Reflection on the forms of equality and freedom implicit in democratic norms of government, then, may help us to formulate a philosophical approach to outing which acknowledges the political importance of freedom of expression, (Joshua Cohen, 2009;Barendt, 2007, 198-246;) but also the ways in which privacy can express and foster distinctively democratic ideas about the substance, as well as the form, of people's claims to equality (Brettschneider, 2007, 71-95;Jean Cohen 1992;Finkin, 1996 and. On democratic principles, we would expect protection for the non-consensual disclosure of personal information to be more extensive and more morally stringent in the case of private citizens than politicians, because the content and strength of their claims to privacy are necessarily constrained by their duties of public accountability (Thompson, 1987;Mokrosinska, 2015;Lever, 2015 b). An adequate account of people's rights, permissions and duties in the case of the non-consensual publication of personal information would have to deal with problems of joint privacy, of anonymous outing, of outing for pay and so on.…”

Towards a democracy-centred ethics

“…Reflection on the forms of equality and freedom implicit in democratic norms of government, then, may help us to formulate a philosophical approach to outing which acknowledges the political importance of freedom of expression, (Joshua Cohen, 2009;Barendt, 2007, 198-246;) but also the ways in which privacy can express and foster distinctively democratic ideas about the substance, as well as the form, of people's claims to equality (Brettschneider, 2007, 71-95;Jean Cohen 1992;Finkin, 1996 and. On democratic principles, we would expect protection for the non-consensual disclosure of personal information to be more extensive and more morally stringent in the case of private citizens than politicians, because the content and strength of their claims to privacy are necessarily constrained by their duties of public accountability (Thompson, 1987;Mokrosinska, 2015;Lever, 2015 b). An adequate account of people's rights, permissions and duties in the case of the non-consensual publication of personal information would have to deal with problems of joint privacy, of anonymous outing, of outing for pay and so on.…”

Democratic epistemology and democratic morality: the appeal and challenges of Peircean pragmatism

“…22 Those special powers and responsibilities, of course, need not be legislative rather than judicial, executive or administrative and, in principle, will apply to citizens in their role as parents, employers, doctors and religious leaders as much as in their roles as voters, jurors, and agents of physical and social security. These different epistemic duties, as well as the different moral and political duties which they reflect, appear also to explain why some forms of citizen reflection and decision making must be open to the scrutiny and participation of others, whereas others need not (Lever 2015, 162-180;Mokrosinska 2015, MacGilvray, 2014. In short, the connection between the epistemic demands on individuals, justified by our shared interests in truth, appear to be too thin to provide a justification of the epistemic demands of democracy.…”