Privacies: Philosophical Evaluations

This ambitious, interdisciplinary collection responds to present intellectual debates concerning the value and limits of privacy. Ever since the beginning of modernity, the line of demarcation between private and public spaces, and the distinction between them, have continually been challenged and redrawn. Such developments as new technologies that introduce previously unforeseen possibilities for infringement upon privacy and the modern spectacles of television talk shows and “reality-TV” give added urgency to the discussion on privacy. This collection examines the fundamental issues structuring that debate.

Bringing together for the first time leading contributors to the recent debates on privacy from both Europe and the United States, this collection affirms that privacy, in all its dimensions, remains a central value of liberal democracies. Its essays expose the complex ways in which privacy is essentially and intimately intertwined with our ideas of freedom, identity, and “the good life.”

Beate Rössler is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She is the author most recently of Der Wert des Privaten (2001).