Privacy, intimacy, and isolation

Privacy is a puzzling concept. From the backyard to the bedroom, everyday life gives rise to an abundance of privacy claims. In the legal sphere, privacy is invoked with respect to issues including abortion, marriage, and homosexuality. Yet privacy is surrounded by a mire of theoretical debate. Certain philosophers argue that privacy is neither conceptually nor morally distinct from other interests, while numerous legal scholars argue that constitutional and tort privacy law protect merely a disparate melange of interests.

Inness offers an escape from this mire. She suggests that intimacy is the core of privacy, including privacy appeals in tort and constitutional law. Conceptually, privacy's protection of intimate decisions distinguishes it from other legal interests, such as liberty from undue state intervention. Intimacy is also the source of privacy's distinctive value. Privacy embodies our respect for people as creators of their own plans of intimacy and of their own emotional destinies. By arguing that intimacy is the core of privacy, Inness undermines privacy skepticism, while also providing a new account of privacy that explains our everyday and legal privacy disagreements, including the controversial constitutional right to privacy.