Connected Self-Ownership and Implications for Online Networks and Privacy Rights

Опубликовано 30 апреля 2018, 17:38

This talk explores the concept of the connected self-owner, which takes account of the metaphysical significance of relations among persons for persons’ capacities to be owners. This concept of the self-owner conflicts with the traditional, libertarian understanding of the self as atomistic or essentially separable from all others. I argue that the atomistic self cannot be a self-owner. A self-owner is a moral person with intentions, desires, thoughts. But to have intentions, desires, thoughts a being has to relate to others through language and norm-guided behavior. Individual beings require the pre-existence of norms and norm-givers to bootstrap their selves, and norms and norm-givers and norm-takers are necessary to continue to support the self. That means, I argue, that the self who can be an owner is essentially connected. Next, I ask how humans become connected selves and whether that matters morally. I distinguish among those connections that support development of valuable capacities. One such capacity is the autonomous individual. I argue that the social connections that allow the development of autonomous individuals have moral value and should be fostered; oppressive social connections, on the other hand, tend to thwart autonomy. This has implications for how we should think about privacy rights and online networks.

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