Privacy, Intimacy, and Isolation

In this book Julie Inness presents a powerful new theory of the nature and value of privacy, centred on the concept of intimacy. `Intimate', Inness contends, describes acts and activities which draw their meaning from the individual's love, liking or care. The function of privacy is to provide the individual with control over intimate decisions, including intimate access to oneself and the dissemination of intimate information about oneself. On this account, privacy's value is neither that it promotes close relationships among people, nor that it respects persons as rational choosers. Rather privacy is valuable because it embodies our respect for persons as emotional beings.