Why Privacy Isn't Everything
Feminist Reflections on Personal Accountability
Published on 16. April 2003
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-0-7425-1408-9 (ISBN)
Description
Accountability protects public health and safety, facilitates law enforcement, and enhances national security, but it is much more than a bureaucratic concern for corporations, public administrators, and the criminal justice system. In Why Privacy Isn't Everything, Anita L. Allen provides a highly original treatment of neglected issues affecting the intimacies of everyday life, and freshly examines how a preeminent liberal society accommodates the competing demands of vital privacy and vital accountability for personal matters. Thus, "None of your business!" is at times the wrong thing to say, as much of what appears to be self-regarding conduct has implications for others that should have some bearing on how a person chooses to act. The book addresses such questions as, What does it mean to be accountable for conduct? For what personal matters am I accountable, and to whom? Allen concludes that the sticky webs of accountability that encase ordinary life are flexible enough to accommodate egalitarian moral, legal and social practices that are highly consistent with contemporary feminist reconstructions of liberalism.
Reviews / Votes
Professor Allen's major new book offers an impressive and compelling analysis of the controversial link between privacy and personal accountability. Whether arguing for accountability with regards to sex, drugs, or the family, Allen's work is essential reading for a wide audience. -- Julie Inness, Mount Holyoke College A wise, warm, and courageous meditation on the complex issues of privacy and accountability, overflowing with rich examples ordered within a systematic framework. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one book to contemplate contemporary issues of privacy and community this would be it! -- Gary T. Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; author of <I>Windows Into the Soul: Surveillance and Society in an Age of High Technology<I> Allen's courageous book fills a gap in the philosophical and legal literature and its controversial conclusions will surely be widely discussed. -- Jean Cohen, Columbia University The text offers a number of convincing case studies, ranging from political matters to Allen's own personal experiences. This highly readable book is at times provocative and always critical. Recommended. * CHOICE * This book is a welcome introducation to accountability for private life. * Philosophy in Review * Whether Professor Allen is writing about inter-racial marriages, presidential adultery, or personal privacy, she always writes with great insight and originality. A true joy. -- Amitai Etzioni, professor, George Washington University; founder of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics Why Privacy Isn't Everything is a highly readable book, fulll of interesting and illuminating observations....[It] is an original, eye-opening, paradigm-shifting work on liberal culture's complex views about the privacy of, and accountability to others for, one's personal life. * Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy, January 2008 *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
422 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7425-1408-9 (9780742514089)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Anita L. Allen is professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Content
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Accountability in Theory and Practice Chapter 3 Accountability to Family and Race Chapter 4 Accountability for Health Chapter 5 Accountability for Sex