Digital Self-Defence: Why you Ought to Preserve Your Privacy for the Sake of Wrongdoers

TY - JOUR

T1 - Digital Self-Defence

T2 - Why you Ought to Preserve Your Privacy for the Sake of Wrongdoers

AU - Munch, Lauritz Aastrup

PY - 2022/4

Y1 - 2022/4

N2 - Most studies on the ethics of privacy focus on what others ought to do to accommodate our interest in privacy. I focus on a related but distinct question that has attracted less attention in the literature: When, if ever, does morality require us to safeguard our own privacy? While we often have prudential reasons for safeguarding our privacy, we are also, at least sometimes, morally required to do so. I argue that we, sometimes, ought to safeguard our privacy for the sake of the possible wrongdoer, in order to prevent the possible wrongdoer from committing a morally defiling act that renders them worse off. I illustrate the variety of cases in which this duty binds us and contrast my view to some other claims in the literature which also purport to show that we sometimes have a duty to safeguard our own privacy.

AB - Most studies on the ethics of privacy focus on what others ought to do to accommodate our interest in privacy. I focus on a related but distinct question that has attracted less attention in the literature: When, if ever, does morality require us to safeguard our own privacy? While we often have prudential reasons for safeguarding our privacy, we are also, at least sometimes, morally required to do so. I argue that we, sometimes, ought to safeguard our privacy for the sake of the possible wrongdoer, in order to prevent the possible wrongdoer from committing a morally defiling act that renders them worse off. I illustrate the variety of cases in which this duty binds us and contrast my view to some other claims in the literature which also purport to show that we sometimes have a duty to safeguard our own privacy.

KW - Duty to protect privacy

KW - Right to Privacy

KW - Self-defense

KW - Wrongdoing

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128185863&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10677-022-10269-w

DO - 10.1007/s10677-022-10269-w

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85128185863

SN - 1386-2820

VL - 25

SP - 233

EP - 248

JO - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

JF - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

IS - 2

ER -