Spinoza and Privacy: An immanent Ethics

Spinoza provides an immanent ethics, based upon different conceptions of imagination and the affects, reason and the individual.

Abstract

In the era of Big Data and computer mediated communication, the problem of conceptualising privacy needs to be re-thought. In this paper, I draw from Spinoza, a central figure of the Radical Enlightenment, to provide an ethical alternative to Kantian morality that is not utilitarian. I apply Spinoza’s ethical framework in order to provide a moral basis for privacy claims. Spinoza provides an immanent ethics, based upon different conceptions of imagination and the affects, reason and the individual. I explain his conceptual framework and ask: on what basis should we decide if information should be published or kept private?

Biography

Janice Richardson is an Associate Professor at Monash University. She is author of the following three books: Selves, Persons, Individuals: Philosophical Perspectives on Women and Legal Obligations (Aldershot: Ashgate Press. 2004), The Classic Social Contractarians: Critical Perspectives from Feminist Philosophy and Law (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009) and Law and the Philosophy of Privacy (London: Routledge, 2015). She is co-editor of Routledge’s Feminist Perspectives on Tort law and Feminist Perspectives on Law and Theory. She has published extensively in journals, including: Feminist Legal Studies, Law and Critique, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Minds and Machines: Journal for Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy and Cognitive Science.