Ethical Assignment # 4

Do we have a moral obligation or duty to protect our privacy?   Why or why not?  Is this obligation collective, individual, or both?  

I believe that “duties to oneself are duties of self-care and self-respect. Among such duties are, first, duties to act so as to promote one’s rational interests in safety, security, freedom, and opportunity and, second, duties to strive to be the kind of person who acts with self-regard, dignity, and integrity. It would potentially violate duties to the self of the first sort to, for example, make oneself ill through easily avoidable medical neglect and would violate duties of the second sort to waste the bulk of one’s time on trivial or demeaning pursuits” (Anita L. Allen, AN ETHICAL DUTY TO PROTECT ONE’S OWN INFORMATION PRIVACY). Also in my opinion the most important focus regarding the definition of privacy is that “it promotes people’s freedom, equality, and happiness…. [P]rivacy can help to protect people from unjustified scorn, humiliation and recrimination, as well as from bribery and coercion” (Annabelle Lever, AN ETHICAL DUTY TO PROTECT ONE’S OWN INFORMATION PRIVACY).

Based on what I think is the best focus on defining privacy and the best approach to define how values about ourselves must be protected, I think there is a moral obligation to protect our privacy. By neglecting to do so we taint the definition of privacy and create a contradictory statement when demanding others to respect our privacy. For example even though it is illegal to trespass a house, if I decide I am not going to have any locks on my doors or windows, and then somebody decides to rob my house, it would be ridiculous to demand that the Government does more against crime. Inasmuch it is the Government's obligation to prevent such incidents and I have the right to decide whether or not I want to help them protecting my property, why would I not take basic precautions that are within my reach if it is in my best interest to do so?  

Furthermore I think  this is a collective obligation: “Philosophically speaking, protecting data privacy should be understood as an ethical responsibility of good governments, businesses, and individuals” (Anita L. Allen, PROTECTING ONE’S OWN PRIVACY IN A BIG DATA ECONOMY).   In our modern times the fast and constant technological advancements have demonstrated that “there are serious practical limits to protecting our own privacy. The methods of data collection and analysis associated with big Data represent challenges to individual’s capacity to make meaningful privacy-protective interventions. Typical individuals among us, even the well educated, are technologically unsophisticated, and the cultural and economic pressures to engage in transactions that call for information disclosures are great” (Anita L. Allen, PROTECTING ONE’S OWN PRIVACY IN A BIG DATA ECONOMY). Because of these modern issues that limit individuals in the process of  protecting their privacy, the Government and businesses have very important roles in this process. Without the equal participation of all the parties involved in this process, there will never be an effective way of regulating it and creating a balance in which privacy’s essence is ethically conserved. There are many positive discoveries that have been accomplished thru  Big data but it is essential to find the right balance between ethically collecting data and  unethically spying on the masses without their consent in order to benefit oneself and the group of people that are paying for the data. Until we do not acknowledge the importance of our collective moral obligation to protect privacy, we will not resolve any of the current issues in modern society and eventually privacy will disappear becoming a privilege instead of a fundamental human right.