1. Thompson On Privacy Richard Warner

2. Thomson’s Critique: Background A moral right is a reason not to interfere, where the reason has a “special status.” There is great controversy about what the “special status” is, but there is agreement on one point: If there is a right to X, then X is desirable for its own sake and not merely as a means to an end.

3. Thomson’s Critique: The Argument Pick any plausible conception of the right to privacy you like. Reflection on examples shows that privacy so conceived is not desirable for its only sake but only as a means to some other end. So: “if I am right, the right to privacy is ‘derivative’ in the this sense: it is possible to explain for each right in the cluster [of privacy rights] to explain how we come to have it without ever mentioning the right to privacy.”

4. Legal Rights Distinguished A legal right is legally recognized (or created) reason not to interfere. Legal rights need not be moral rights. I can have a legal right to make a right turn. No one would suggest that making right turns is desirable for its own sake. Thomson is not concerned with legal rights.

5. The Safe Example A person keeps a picture locked in a safe so that only he can see it. We have surveillance device that will allow us to look into the safe from miles away without opening the safe. Does this violate a right to privacy? Or is it a trespass (an unauthorized entry into or use of another’s property)? Or both? But if both why does it matter that it is a violation of a privacy right?

6. Information, Privacy, and Rights Thomson: if I know a person keeps a pornographic picture in a safe, and I publish that fact in a newspaper, I do not violate the person’s right to privacy. Thompson assumes that she obtains the information is a completely legitimate way. But how? Suppose no one but the person knows about the picture? How would she find out? Suppose only people sworn to confidentiality know?

7. Compromised Privacy If she obtains the information illegitimately, and then publishes it, that does compromise the person’s privacy. It reduces the control the person has over what people know about the person and what they do with it. Does it violate a (moral, non-legal) right to privacy? There is no need to answer “Yes” to insist that information privacy is important. Informational privacy can be an important means to important ends.

8. Norms and Privacy Do these conversations (which Thomson discusses) violate informational norms: Cab driver: “My wife is having an affair with her psychiatrist.” Casual acquaintance: “It must have been terrible to watch the truck hit your child.”