Social Interpretation Of Privacy Essay

An intricate part of classifying humans is our innate need to thrive as social beings. According to the Primate Social Intelligence Hypothesis, humans are considered to be ultra social. (Herrmann, Call, Hernàndez-Lloreda, Hare, & Tomasello, 2007) As a part of the human race we are no strangers to the occasional “ white lie”, omittance of the truth, or keeping secrets. All of these acts are related to the idea that the person that is withholding information has no interest in disclosing it to the other party in the conversation. This ability to manipulate what we disclose and what we keep to ourselves is integrated in to James Rachels’ social interpretation of privacy. Privacy is the ability to control who has access to information about us as well as our ability to use this control to establish different types of relationships in our everyday life. (Rachels, 1975 page 326) In the article by Rachels, (1975 page 325) it is discussed that value of …show more content…
The nature of the relationship is determined by the role that the person fills in one’s life (i.e.: boss, wife, banker etc.). We establish these relationships with the disclosure of information that we filter to maintain our privacy and then behave in a way that maintains that boundary. Our ability to manipulate things so that we are comfortable with the amount of information that a given person knows about our lives is what Rachels, (1975 page 326) was outlining in his theory. Although I agree with his proposed value of privacy, Rachels limits his theory to general application of social implications on why privacy is important and doesn’t take into account the specifics ideas of privacy. A model of privacy that integrates different aspects into account is needed to capture a wholesome description that is applicable to specific situations in addition to the mundane situations that were outlines in this