Publisher's Description

As impressions grow that privacy is under increasing threat, the sphere of private life has needed to reassert itself, yet efforts to this end are beset with numerous difficulties, including the ways in which the private sphere has for centuries been understood and misunderstood. While Public/Private takes up a broadly liberal perspective, it endeavors to reach beyond an audience of liberal theorists to include other political orientations and philosophical traditions. Fairfield examines the ethical-political significance as well as the policy implications of a right to privacy. Discussing the different applications of this right to information privacy laws, technology, and property, Fairfield writes in a style accessible to specialists and students alike.

"Paul Fairfield provides a multidimensional analysis of the venerable distinction between the public and the private. His skillful defense of the right to privacy is thoughtful, well informed, and well argued in this important book."
--- Tom Rockmore, Duquesne University

"With a seldom achieved, compelling clarity, Paul Fairfield's account of the distinction between the public and the private demonstrates how it is possible to keep the distinction within the conversation of humankind without having it solidify into an ideologically charged dichotomy. The contribution of Fairfield's analysis to an understanding of the role of privacy rights in the realm of public policy extends across the disciplines of philosophy, political theory, psychology, and religion."
--- Calvin O. Schrag, Purdue University

"Paul Fairfield's clearly written and well argued book is an important and welcome addition to the literature on the subject. Through his historically informed and refreshingly sober analysis of the many complex issues surrounding the public/private controversy in today's world, Paul Fairfield has managed to set out a well articulated, well balanced, and much-needed defense of the moral right to personal privacy---to difference, plurality, and self-realization---in an age when everything seems to conspire against it."
--- G.B. Madison, McMaster University