The Online Library of Liberty

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• Literature of Liberty a Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought
• Editorial Staff
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• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Henry B. Veatch, Natural Law: Dead Or Alive?
• I: Natural Law
• “nature” and “law” In Natural Law
• The Anatomy of Natural Rights
• Egoism and Rights
• The Is/ought Chimera
• Deriving “ought” From “is”
• Facts Vs. Value-laden Whims
• Is/ought and Probable Reasons
• Does Righteous Anger Imply Rights?
• Why Be Moral?
• Truth As an Objective Value
• Was the Revolution Objectively Necessary?
• Natural Law and State of Nature
• Natural Law and the State
• Natural Rights and Anarchism
• Dworkin On Rights
• Liberalism, Rights, and Abortion
• Rights and “mercy Killing”
• Rights and the “brain Drain”
• The Natural Law Right to Work
• Grotius: Contract and Natural Law
• Rights and Communication
• II: Autonomy, Privacy, and Authority
• Bureaucracy and “the Organization Man”
• Autonomy and Anarchism
• Autonomy and Taking Responsibility
• Autonomy, Motivation, and “buck-passing”
• Schooling For Conformity
• The Schoolroom Vs. Autonomy
• Obedience to Authority
• The Meaning of Privacy
• Privacy and Autonomy
• Privacy and Consent
• The Court and Privacy
• III: The Ambiguities of Liberty
• Clarifying Freedom
• Rehabilitating Mill's “harm Principle”
• Experiencing Freedom
• Do Offers Coerce Freedom?
• The Danger of “dangerousness”
• Freedom, Motivation, and Government Programs
• Freedom Vs. Determinism
• Negative Vs. Positive Freedom
• Smith and Utilitarian Economic Freedom
• Locke, Freedom, and Tacit Consent
• Religious Freedom
• Freedom, Existentialism, and Innocent Victims
• Does Censorship Harm Freedom?
• IV: Slavery
• Slavery, Ideology, and Subordination
• Slavery and Imperialist Ideology
• Enlightenment Liberalism Vs. Slavery
• The Anatomy of a Slave Revolt
• Colonial American Slave Law
• Jefferson On Slavery
• Slavery and the Poor
• V: Planning
• Regulation and the Warfare State
• Mail, Privacy, and Social Control
• Corporate State Capitalism: Coal
• French War “planification”: Chlorates
• Bureaucracy and British Regulation
• British Foreign Policy and Stagnation
• Political Decisions and the Economy
• Government, Labor, and Multinationals
• Black Markets Vs. Regulation
• Regulation Vs. Academic Autonomy
• Government Schools and Social Control
• The Economics of Charity
• International State Planning and Inflation
• Competition and Individual Knowledge

Privacy and Consent

Carol Warren Barbara Laslett

• University of Southern California

“Privacy and Secrecy: A Conceptual Comparison.”

Both privacy and secrecy involve restricted observability and the capacity to deny access to others. The authors contend that the two differ on a moral dimension. “Secrecy implies the concealment of something which is negatively valued by the excluded audience and, in some instances, by the perpetrator as well.” It is a means to escape being stigmatized. “Privacy, by contrast, protects behavior which is either morally neutral or valued by society as well as by the perpetrators... Privacy has a consensual basis in society, which secrecy does not. There is an agreed-upon ‘right to privacy’ in many areas of contemporary life; however, there is no equivalent, consensual ‘right to secrecy’.”

The authors take note of Shils's (1966) concept of “public-life secrecy.” “Public-life secrecy is secrecy on the part of those in power and their agents, acting purportedly in the public interest.” As such it is closely related to the institution of politics. “Public-life secrecy is active and directed at others' lives, while private-life secrecy is passive and protective of the self.... The secrecy of those empowered to act in the public interest is aimed at actively uncovering persons, groups, and activities which are a threat to those in power. In contrast, private-life secrecy is protective rather than aggressive; indeed, a major aim of private-life secrecy is to protect persons from secret agents of social control.”

For their example of privacy the authors selected various family activities, whereas their example of secrecy portrays the homosexual world. Whatever the value of these examples, the conceptual distinction between privacy and secrecy may lead to further research.