Privacy, Knowledge, and Self-Presentation

Cameron McCulloch (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

Abstract:

Epistemologists and privacy theorists have (mostly) ignored each other. This paper argues that this is a mistake. Despite the centrality of epistemic concerns to discussions of privacy, almost no theorists frame their theories in epistemic terms. I argue for an account which does just that. First, I raise two prominent theories of privacy that reject epistemic framing and argue this is a mistake for a variety of reasons. I then offer an epistemic frame (a constraint) on one of these theories and present a larger theory—the Knowledge Account of Privacy—of which it is a part. I then respond to two objections, one of which comes from the small quarter of privacy theorists who do cast their theories in epistemic terms.