Value: Morality
There is no absolute morality, rather it is determined by ourselves with our
autonomy. Further, only a consenting agreement can create moral obligations
outside of respecting others autonomy.
Daniel Callahan, Senior Research Scholar and President Emeritus of the Center, Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Medical
School and is now a Senior Scholar at Yale. He received his B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D in philosophy from Harvard. 10/1986,
A Moral Good, Not a Moral Obsession, The Hastings Center, Vol. 14, No. 5, Autonomy, Paternalism, and Community,
Date Accessed- 7/21/2013
If (to be reminded of Wittgenstein) we look not for the meaning of autonomy but for its
social uses, what do we see? 1. As moral agents, we are essentially
independent of each other and isolated; we are not social animals, but
morally self-en- closed, self-encompassing animals. 2. There can be no moral
truth or wisdom about individual moral goods and goals and few if any about
communal ends; morality is inherently subjective and relativistic. 3. The
ideal relationship among human beings is the voluntary, contractual
relationship of consenting adults; the community has no standing to say what
is good or bad in such relationships. 4. In any weighing of the relative
interests of individual and community, the bur- den of proof is always upon
the community to prove its case for restricting the liberty of individuals. 5.
The only moral obligations I have toward others are those I voluntarily
under- take; there can be no such thing as an in- voluntary moral obligation.
6. The only moral obligations that oth- ers have toward me are those that
autonomously I allow them to have; all I am owed by others is respect for my
autonomy. 7. Respect for the autonomy of others is sufficient ground for
overriding my own conscience.
Criterion: Preserving Autonomy
Contention 1: Privacy is essential to Autonomy
Privacy is needed in order to retain autonomy
DANIEL J. SOLOVE, 2002, Assistant Professor, Seton Hall Law School, DIGITAL DOSSIERS AND THE DISSIPATION OF
FOURTH AMENDMENT PRIVACY, http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~usclrev/pdf/075502.pdf
government information-gathering can severely constrain democracy and
individual self-determination. Paul Schwartz illustrates this with his theory of “constitutive privacy.”99
According to Schwartz, privacy is essential to both individuals and communities:
“[C]onstitutive privacy seeks to create boundaries about personal information
to help the individual and define terms of life within the community.”100 As a form
of regulation of information flow, privacy shapes “the extent to which certain actions or
expressions of identity are encouraged or discouraged.”101 Schwartz contends that
extensive government oversight over an individual’s activities can “corrupt
individual decision making about the elements of one’s identity.” Further,
inadequate protection of privacy threatens deliberative democracy by
inhibiting people from engaging in democratic activities. This can occur unintentionally;
even if government entities are not attempting to engage in social control,
their activities can have collateral effects that harm democracy and selfdetermination.
Privacy protects Autonomy and individuality.
Michael R. Curry, 1997, Department of Geography, University of California, “The Digital Individual and the Private
Realm”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2564405
Yet a bit of reflection suggests the difficulty with all of these positions. The difficulty is, put- ting the matter simply, that the
private realm performs important functions in the life of the individual and
the group. It is in private that people have the opportunity to become
individu- als in the sense that we think of the term. People, after all, become
individuals in the public realm just by selectively making public certain things
about themselves. Whether this is a matter of being selective about one's religious or political views, work history,
education, income, or com- plexion, the important point is this: in a complex society, people
adjust their public identities in ways that they believe best, and they develop
those identities in more private settings.
+
Invasions of privacy causes loss of autonomy.
Ron Watson, Department of Political Science, Washington University., “The Ethics of Domestic Government Spying”
March 2013¶ http://rewatson.wustl.edu/The%20Ethics%20of%20Domestic%20Government%20Spying.pdf
This line of argument is supported by a further set of responses that people
might have¶ to learning how
their government regulates domestic spying. When principles unfairly or¶
unequally target certain groups, they can demean, humiliate, and disrespect
members of¶ those groups when they become public. Principles can also have
these e ects if they signal¶ to people their chosen pursuits are unworthy,
shameful, or depraved. People's self-respect¶ often depends on the existence
of spaces for action free from government intrusion. Further,¶ when citizens
worry that they are under covert observation by their government, there are
a¶ range of activities that can become less enjoyable because they are less
private. Finally, when¶ citizens suspect that the government spies on them, they may lose trust in their government ¶ and
its institutions
Contention 2:
Violation of privacy leads to a totalitarian state
Daniel J. Solove. Associate professor of law at the George Washington University
Law School."The Digital Person: Technology And Privacy In The Information
Age"New York: New York University Press, 2004.
Orwell's Totalitarian World. Journalists, politicians, and jurists often describe the
problem created by
databases with the metaphor of Big Brother--the harrowing totalitarian government portrayed in
George Orwell's 1984. Big Brother is an all-knowing, constantly vigilant government that
regulates every aspect of one's existence. In every corner are posters of an enormous face, with "eyes
[that] follow you about when you move" and the caption "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU." ¶ Big
Brother
demands complete obedience from its citizens and controls all aspects of their
lives. It constructs the language, rewrites the history, purges its critics, indoctrinates the population, burns books, and
obliterates all disagreeable relics from the past. Big Brother's goal is uniformity and complete
discipline, and it attempts to police people to an unrelenting degree--even their
innermost thoughts. Any trace of individualism is quickly suffocated.¶ This
terrifying totalitarian state achieves its control by targeting the private life , employing
various techniques of power to eliminate any sense of privacy. Big Brother views solitude
as dangerous. Its techniques of power are predominantly methods of
surveillance. Big Brother is constantly monitoring and spying; uniformed patrols linger on street
corners; helicopters hover in the skies, poised to peer into windows. The primary
surveillance tool is a device called a "telescreen" which is installed into each house and apartment. The telescreen is a bilateral
television--individuals can watch it, but it also enables Big Brother to watch them. ¶