Why Privacy Isn't Everything: Feminist Reflections on Personal Accountability (Feminist Constructions)

221 Pages·2003·13.3 MB·English

by  Anita L. Allen

Why Privacy
Isn’t Everything
.,------
/feminist Series Editors: Hilde Lindemann Nelson,
cons tvuctions
Sara Ruddick, and Margaret Urban Walker
Feminist Constructions publishes accessible books that send feminist
ethics in promising new directions. Feminist ethics has excelled at
critique, identifying masculinist bias in social practice and in the moral
theory that is used to justify that practice. The series continues the work
of critique, but its emphasis falls on construction. Moving beyond
critique, the series aims to build a positive body of theory that extends
feminist moral understandings.
Feminists Doing Ethics
edited by Peggy DesAutels and Joanne Waugh
Gender Struggles: Practical Approaches to Contemporary Feminism
edited by Constance L. Mui and Julien S. Murphy
“Sympathy and Solidarity ’’ and Other Essays
by Sandra Lee Bartky
The Subject of Violence: Arendtean Exercises in Understanding
by Bat-Ami Bar On
How Can I Be Trusted? A Virtue Theory of Trustworthiness
by Nancy Nyquist Potter
Moral Contexts
by Margaret Urban Walker
Recognition, Responsibility, and Rights: Feminist Ethics & Social Theory
edited by Robin N. Fiore and Hilde Lindemann Nelson
The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on Wac Love, and Knowledge
by Chris Cuomo
The Subject of Care: Feminist Perspectives on Dependency
edited by Eva Feder Kittay and Ellen K. Feder
Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions
by Mm’a Lugones
Why Privacy Isn’t Everything: Feminist Refections on Personal Accountabilit)
by Anita L. Allen
Forthcoming books in the series by
Amy R. Baehr; Joan Mason-Grant; Diana Tietjens Meyers; Robin Schott
Why Privacy
Isn’t Everything
Feminist Reflections on Personal
Accountability
Anita L. Allen
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham Boulder New York Oxford
ROWMAN & LI'ITLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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Copyright 0 2003 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
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of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationD ata
Allen, Anita L., 1953-
Why privacy isn't everything : feminist reflections on personal accountability
I Anita L. Allen.
p. cm.--(Feminist constructions)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7425-1408-0 (cloth : alk. paper)-ISBN 0-7425-1409-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Social norms-Philosophy. 2. Ethics-United States. 3. Responsibility-United
States. 4. Privacy-United States. I. Title. 11. Series.
HM676 .A45 2003
303.3'726~21
2002014948
Printed in the United States of America
eMTh e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSUNIS0 239.48- 1992.
To Monica Lynne Allen Newel1
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Introduction 1
1 The Theory and Practice of Accountability 15
2 Accountability to Family and Race 53
3 Accountability for Health 115
4 Accountability for Sex 141
Conclusion 195
Index 20 1
About the Author 211
vii
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Introduction
Accountability for conduct is a pervasive feature of human association.’ For
example, along with explicit concerns about its proper means and ends, ac-
countability operates implicitly in the fields of public administration and cor-
porate governance.2 Accountability imperatives drive the law of tort and
crime. Accountability should not and cannot be total in any domain short of
dystopia. Still, in every sector of society a degree of accountability for con-
duct is critical. It “is an essential and undismissable desideratum for orderly
social interaction” without which “it is impossible to conceive of a society re-
sembling an organized interlocking of individual actions, or for that matter
maintaining sociality and inters~bjectivity.”In~ the United States, as in other
places, accountability and concerns about accountability range beyond the af-
fairs of government and business enterprises whose stakeholders decry daft
decision making and disappointing bottom lines.
Accountability and accountability concerns also extend into what Ameri-
cans call “private life.” Yet, how can that be? “Accountability for private life”
is surely an oxymoron. After all, calling a realm or activity “private” is one
of the ways to signal that answering to another earthly being is not required.
It seems that, by definition, we are supposed to be unaccountable for what we
term “private” life and accountable for the less precious rest of life.4
So the story goes. And it is somethmg of a story, one that some of us some-
times imagine to be true. When designating certain realms or activities
“private,” “personal,” and the like, we imagine ourselves as citizens of a free
society, each entitled to enjoy a number of states, feelings, thoughts, acts, and
relationships for which we owe others no accounting. Although others have a
say in what we do in our capacities as managers, employees, and driver’s li-
cense holders, they have no similar say in what we do as private persons. We
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