deWnitions of privacy used in the relevant literature (Olsen 1991 ; Okin 1991 ;
MacKinnon 1991 ; Morris 2000 ; Cohen 2002 ), but accompanying these are
critiques of the distinction between private and public that vary greatly in
their radicalism. In general terms, it can nevertheless be said that feminist
theories challenge the traditional, repressive, concept of privacy, and attempt
to describe and interpret privacy in new ways.
By way of a provisional generalization, we have already seen that more
recent theories of privacy conceptualize the private as relating to, constituted
by, or interested in individual, personal freedom or autonomy. This is the
case in jurisprudence, philosophical theories, and feminist accounts alike.
The focus onfreedom and autonomyis present in the most diverse theories of
privacy, ranging from those addressing questions of sexual self-determination
(Cohen 2002 ), to those that concentrate on informational privacy (Reiman
2004 ; Agre and Rotenberg 1998 ), and those that attach central importance to
the privacy of the home (Young 2004 ). 1 This new association of freedom and
privacy has not, however, gone without criticism. Here I present three kinds
of criticism, before looking in more detail at the individual conceptions of
privacy that are oriented towards freedom. These three kinds of criticism
should be understood as skeptical responses to the new conceptions of
privacy, but I argue that they are skeptical responses founded upon misun-
derstanding.
3.1 The Communitarian Critique
Theorists from the communitarian traditionWnd it suspicious that theories
of privacy represent individual freedom as theraison d’eˆtrefor privacy. In
general, they call into question the connection between (decisional) privacy
and autonomy. They argue that privacy should not be conceived as a realm or
dimension of individual freedom, that is, as functionally related to the
individual self, but rather as a realm or dimension of life concerned with
1 Opinions vary greatly on the deWnition and meaning of privacy. Approaches that emphasize
control contrast with others that seek to deWne privacy in terms of access, and yet others for which the
central deWnition would simply be the general right to be left alone (Schoeman 1984 ; Bok 1983 ;
Chapman and Pennock 1971 ). It also remains a matter of debate whether privacy shouldWrst and
foremost be a right that protects individuals (Inness 1992 ; Reiman 2004 ) or one that protects
relationships (Rachels 1975 ; Fried 1968 ) or practices (Etzioni 1999 ; Sandel 1982 ).
new ways of thinking about privacy 699