RE: MD Should privacy be a right?

From: Ian Glendinning (ian@psybertron.org)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 10:37:57 BST

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    Rick said ..
    > Creating the kind of privacy that men need to think, the kind
    > Phaedrus found on his boat (and presumably once his motorcycle) is THE
    MOST
    > MORAL ACTIVITY OF ALL. Moreover, when Lila seeks privacy to sort out the
    > problems of her life Phaedrus comments on the same page that "...the
    culture
    > has a moral obligation not to bother her." And Lila's battle is
    everybody's
    > battle ...

    I completely buy that view. IMHO, most of Lila (the narrative anyway) is
    about Pirsig's battle with the need for Phaedrus own privacy and the higher,
    but inconvenient, moral obligation to Lila's needs.

    Johhny said ...
    > What is the point of privacy if you can't do illegal stuff in it? Like
    ...

    Provocative, OK, but no way can you defend that. When the political
    machinery of a society frames laws, to protect its static social framework
    and preserve dynamic rights, it is quite feasible for it to decide on purely
    pragmatic grounds whether to legislate about things done in private as much
    as public.

    Privacy is not the right to break the law, it's the right to use the space
    afforded. Clearly there may be circumstance where there are higher moral
    demands to break a current law or code of any kind (in public or private)-
    that's one point of the moral levels. I think privacy is a red herring here,
    more often than not, morally driven law-breaking is deliberately public - to
    make the point / create the effect etc. Space is space is space, not a right
    to break the law.

    Ian Glendinning

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