Book Review: The Limits of Privacy
21 J. Legal Med. 263 (2000)
9 Pages Posted: 24 Mar 2021
Date Written: June 2000
Abstract
In The Limits of Privacy, Amitai Etzioni, of George Washington University, has proposed a paradigm for analyzing privacy conflicts and applied it to five current controversies, mostly in medicine and computer technology. The paradigm is based on a "communitarian" approach-a socio-philosophical construct that Professor Etzioni has spent much of his distinguished career promoting-that balances the privacy rights of individuals against the common good. While the reader may not agree with the conclusions reached regarding each controversy, or even with the underlying paradigm, Etzioni's analyses are all thoughtful and compelling. The end result is a fascinating survey of cutting-edge issues at the intersection of American privacy rights and new kinds of information disclosures. Although only two of the topics addressed in The Limits of Privacy involve health care directly, the ideas and insights revealed throughout certainly provide a useful backdrop for considering a wide range of issues that arise in the health care system. Professor Etzioni's communitarian philosophy begins with the core premise that "we are not merely rights-bearing individuals but also community members who are responsible for each other."2 We have obligations to the rest of society that can be at least as strong as the rights that society grants us. No single right, not even the right to privacy, "can be used to trump all other considerations."' Analyses of privacy interests, therefore, require a balancing of the competing interests inherent in each conflict.
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