¹ Warren, Samuel D. and Brandeis, Louis D., “The Right to Privacy,” Harvard Law Review 4, no. 5 (12 1890): 193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1927).Google Scholar

³ Parent, William A., “Privacy, Morality, and the Law,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 17, no. 4 (Fall 1983): 272.Google Scholar

⁴ Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 484 (1965).Google Scholar

⁵ Gross, Hyman, “Privacy and Autonomy,” reprinted in Feinberg, Joel and Gross, Hyman, eds., Philosophy of Law, 3rd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1986), 296.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Of course, this point has no particular bearing on the question of whether or not the Griswold majority opinion by Justice William Douglas was a reasonable constitutional interpretation.

⁸ In the sociological sense, the morality of a society at a time is the set of norms actually accepted and enforced as morality. In the critical sense, the society's morality is the set of norms that ought to be accepted and enforced as morality.

⁹ Kalven, Harry, “Privacy in Tort Law—Were Warren and Brandeis Wrong?” Law and Contemporary Problems 31, no. 2 (Spring 1966): 327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Avishai Margalit recounts hearing an elderly Englishwoman remonstrating at the sight of a woman sunbathing in a park in bra and panties. A query to her about whether this was more objectionable than sunbathing in a bikini elicited the reply, “That's different. Underwear is private.” See Margalit, , The Decent Society, trans. Goldblum, Naomi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 202.Google Scholar

¹¹ Here I follow the analysis in Gavison, Ruth, “Privacy and the Limits of Law,” Yale Law Journal 89, no. 3 (01 1980): 421–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is a voluminous literature devoted to the analysis of the concept of privacy.

¹² For some discussion, see my “Human Flourishing versus Desire Satisfaction,” Social Philosophy and Policy 16, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 113–42.Google Scholar

¹³ On prioritarianism, see Parfit, Derek, Equality or Priority? The Lindley Lecture (Lawrence, KS: Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas, 1995)Google Scholar; and McKerlie, Dennis, “Equality and Priority,” Utilitas 6, no. 1 (05 1994): 25–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. To the best of my knowledge, the first philosophical discussion of the idea is in Weirich, Paul, “Utility Tempered with Equality,” Noûs 17, no. 3 (09 1983): 423–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ I believe that one should modify prioritarian principle to cater for the concern about responsibility but not for the concern about deservingness, for reasons I do not articulate in this essay.

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¹⁸ Mill's Liberty Principle states that “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection.” Mill immediately restates the principle in these words: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Mill, , On Liberty, 223.Google Scholar

¹⁹ This reading of Mill's argument is presented in Gray, John, Mill on Liberty: A Defence, 2d ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 1996)Google Scholar. The Liberty Principle that Mill actually defends is subtler than what I present in the text, but this does not affect the point that Mill argues for a Liberty Principle, to be accepted as an exceptionless rule, as a strategy for promoting utility.

²⁰ Lyons, David, Rights, Welfare, and Mill's Moral Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 147–75.Google Scholar

²¹ What about the responsibility element in responsibility-catering prioritarianism? It complicates, but does not undo, the prior discussion. The principle bids us to tilt toward action in favor of the worse off, and also in favor of those whom it would not be reasonable to hold personally responsible for their worse-off plight.

²² Posner, Richard, “Privacy, Secrecy, and Reputation,” Buffalo Law Review 28, no. 1 (Winter 1979): 23–24Google Scholar; and Posner, , “An Economic Theory of Privacy,” Regulation 2, no. 3 (05/06 1978): 19–26.Google Scholar

²³ Nagel, Thomas, “Concealment and Exposure,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 27, no. 1 (Winter 1998): 3–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Wolff, Jonathan, “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 27, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 97–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²⁶ Anderson, Elizabeth, “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 99, no. 2 (01 1999): 287–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²⁹ Another possibility is that the critic holds that the standard for good consequences set by responsibility-catering prioritarianism is inadequate. The critic may hold this because he thinks that responsibility-catering prioritarianism fails to recognize fully the value of privacy. The critic might also hold that one or more of the values of increasing human well-being, giving priority to the worse off, or adjusting priority by people's differential responsibility for their condition is flawed. Comments in the next paragraphs respond to these criticisms.

³⁰ A leximin principle of distribution holds that as a first priority, one should maximize the benefit level of the worst-off person; as a second priority, one should maximize the benefit level of the second-worst-off person; and so on, up to the best-off person. In each instance the priority is absolute, so that one should seek even the slightest gain that can be made to improve the condition of (for example) the worst-off person no matter what costs this would pose to the condition of the second-worst-off person (so long as she remains second-worst-off) or to the condition of any better-off persons.

³¹ Wolff alternates between these phrasings in “Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos,” 107.Google Scholar

³² Ibid.

³³ Quoted in Egan, Timothy, “Soldiers of the Drug War Remain on Duty,” New York Times, 03 1, 1999, A16.Google Scholar

³⁴ Orwell, George, Homage to Catalonia (1938; reprint, New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1952), 115.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid., 105.

³⁶ Of course, this is misleading in a way, because if the dreariness of prioritarianism muffles allegiance to it, then this very doctrine recommends that inspiring mid-level principles be devised that can elicit people's loyalty in ways that will better achieve prioritarian ends.