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30Free speech, privacy, and autonomySocial Philosophy and Policy 37 (2): 31-51. 2020.While autonomy arguments provide a compelling foundation for free speech, they also support individual privacy rights. Considering how speech and privacy may be justified, I will argue that the speech necessary for self-government does not need to include details that would violate privacy rights. Additionally, I will argue that if viewed as a kind of intangible property right, informational privacy should limit speech and expression in a range of cases. In a world where we have an overabundance…Read more
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58Taxation, Forced Labor, and Theft: Why Taxation is “On a Par” with Forced LaborSouthern Journal of Philosophy 59 (3): 362-385. 2020.The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 59, Issue 3, Page 362-385, September 2021.
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26Privacy, transparency, and the prisoner’s dilemmaEthics and Information Technology 22 (3): 211-222. 2020.Aside from making a few weak, and hopefully widely shared claims about the value of privacy, transparency, and accountability, we will offer an argument for the protection of privacy based on individual self-interest and prudence. In large part, this argument will parallel considerations that arise in a prisoner’s dilemma game. After briefly sketching an account of the value of privacy, transparency, and accountability, along with the salient features of a prisoner’s dilemma games, a game-theory…Read more
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27Privacy, Security and Accountability: Ethics, Law and Policy (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield International. 2015.This volume analyses the moral and legal foundations of privacy, security, and accountability along with the tensions that arise between these important individual and social values.
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121Privacy: Its Meaning and ValueAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 40 (3). 2003.Bodily privacy, understood as a right to control access to one’s body, capacities, and powers, is one of our most cherished rights − a right enshrined in law and notions of common morality. Informational privacy, on the other hand, has yet to attain such a loftily status. As rational project pursuers, who operate and flourish in a world of material objects it is our ability control patterns of association and disassociation with our fellows that afford each of us the room to become distinct indi…Read more
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3Intellectual Property and the Prisoner's Dilemma: A Game Theory Justification of Copyrights, Patents, and Trade SecretsFordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal 28. 2018.Setting aside various foundational moral entanglements, I will offer an argument for the protection of intellectual property based on individual self-interest and prudence. In large part, this argument will parallel considerations that arise in a prisoner’s dilemma game. After sketching the salient features of a prisoner’s dilemma, I will briefly examine the nature of intellectual property and how one can view content creation, exclusion, and access as a prisoner’s dilemma. In brief, allowing co…Read more
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21In this article I argue that the proper subjects of intangible property claims include medical records, genetic profiles, and gene enhancement techniques. Coupled with a right to privacy these intangible property rights allow individuals a zone of control that will, in most cases, justifiably exclude governmental or societal invasions into private domains. I argue that the threshold for overriding privacy rights and intangible property rights is higher, in relation to genetic enhancement techniq…Read more
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46Employee Monitoring and Computer TechnologyBusiness Ethics Quarterly 10 (3): 697-709. 2000.In this article I address the tension between evaluative surveillance and privacy against the backdrop of the current explosion of information technology. More specifically, and after a brief analysis of privacy rights, I argue that knowledge of the different kinds ofsurveillance used at any given company should be made explicit to the employees. Moreover, there will be certain kinds of evaluativemonitoring that violate privacy rights and should not be used in most cases.
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22Privacy, speech, and values: what we have no business knowingEthics and Information Technology 18 (1): 41-49. 2016.In the United States the ascendancy of speech protection is due to an expansive and unjustified view of the value or primacy of free expression and access to information. This is perhaps understandable, given that privacy has been understood as a mere interest, whereas speech rights have been seen as more fundamental. I have argued elsewhere that the “mere interest” view of privacy is false. Privacy, properly defined, is a necessary condition for human well-being or flourishing. The opening sect…Read more
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33Privacy, Liberty, Property, and the Genetic Modification of HumansJournal of Philosophical Research 30 (9999): 81-94. 2005.
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25Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal FoundationsPennsylvania State University Press. 2010.We all know that Google stores huge amounts of information about everyone who uses its search tools, that Amazon can recommend new books to us based on our past purchases, and that the U.S. government engaged in many data-mining activities during the Bush administration to acquire information about us, including involving telecommunications companies in monitoring our phone calls. Control over access to our bodies and to special places, like our homes, has traditionally been the focus of concern…Read more
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68Privacy, public health, and controlling medical informationHEC Forum 22 (3): 225-240. 2010.This paper argues that individuals do, in a sense, own or have exclusive claims to control their personal information and body parts. It begins by sketching several arguments that support presumptive claims to informational privacy, turning then to consider cases which illustrate when and how privacy may be overridden by public health concerns
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198Privacy, Security, and Government Surveillance: Wikileaks and the New AccountabilityPublic Affairs Quarterly 25 (2): 141-156. 2011.In times of national crisis, citizens are often asked to trade liberty and privacy for security. And why not, it is argued, if we can obtain a fair amount of security for just a little privacy? The surveillance that enhances security need not be overly intrusive or life altering. It is not as if government agents need to physically search each and every suspect or those connected to a suspect. Advances in digital technology have made such surveillance relatively unobtrusive. Video monitoring, gl…Read more
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38Privacy, Neuroscience, and Neuro-SurveillanceRes Publica 23 (2): 159-177. 2017.The beliefs, feelings, and thoughts that make up our streams of consciousness would seem to be inherently private. Nevertheless, modern neuroscience is offering to open up the sanctity of this domain to outside viewing. A common retort often voiced to this worry is something like, ‘Privacy is difficult to define and has no inherent moral value. What’s so great about privacy?’ In this article I will argue against these sentiments. A definition of privacy is offered along with an account of why pr…Read more
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60Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal FoundationsPennsylvania State University Press. 2010."Provides a definition and defense of individual privacy rights. Applies the proposed theory to issues including privacy versus free speech; drug testing; and national security and public accountability"--Provided by publisher.
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86Intangible Property: Privacy, Power, and Information ControlAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 35 (4). 1998.
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105In this article I argue that the proper subjects of intangible property claims include medical records, genetic profiles, and gene enhancement techniques. Coupled with a right to privacy these intangible property rights allow individuals a zone of control that will, in most cases, justifiably exclude governmental or societal invasions into private domains. I argue that the threshold for overriding privacy rights and intangible property rights is higher, in relation to genetic enhancement techniq…Read more
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64Employee Monitoring and Computer TechnologyBusiness Ethics Quarterly 10 (3): 697-709. 2000.In this article I address the tension between evaluative surveillance and privacy against the backdrop of the current explosion of information technology. More specifically, and after a brief analysis of privacy rights, I argue that knowledge of the different kinds ofsurveillance used at any given company should be made explicit to the employees. Moreover, there will be certain kinds of evaluativemonitoring that violate privacy rights and should not be used in most cases.
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Value Theory, Miscellaneous |