Truth-Telling and Confidentiality (TT&C) Precis Assignment - Essay Example

Details Précis: “Why Privacy Is Important,” James Rachel In his essay, “why privacy is important”, James Rachels states that privacy is a value that is valued by most people who are civilized and it often seems unproblematic until we start to think about it (Rachel 156). Rachels inquire why people should care so much about their privacy. The reason why people put so much interest on their privacy has no definite explanation or answer because there are so many reasons why we have to maintain our privacy.

He points out that the first reason why people maintain their privacy is to protect their interest in a competition or competitive situations. Secondly, he points out that we maintain our privacy so as to keep some aspect of our behavior or life a secret because if other people knows about these secrets it might be embarrassing for them. The third reason to maintain our privacy as he points out, mostly relates to an individual’s medical records. It is important to keep an individual’s medical record private in order to protect that individual from dealing with the consequences of making such record public.

The last reason that Rachels points out, for maintaining our privacy is to protect individuals from giving too much information to corporate or institution that are just looking for a specific detail about the individual’s life (Rachels 156). However, Rachels argues that the reasons he has pointed out here does not give the complete understanding of why privacy is important for two reasons: First, they all bases on the unusual situation in which an individual has something to hide and might harm him if let out.

Second, in another perspective, the invasions of privacy that result in harm or an embarrassment is objectionable because our sense of privacy cannot just be justified in terms our fear of embarrassment or harm (Rachels 157). He gives his account on the importance of privacy basing on social relationship and an individual’s appropriate behavior. He states that privacy is only important if we are to maintain our social relationship with different kinds of people that we would like to socialize with, since our relationship to other people mostly depends upon how we act towards them (Rachels 157).

He further states that people vary the way they behave towards each other according to the social responsibility they have towards them. Similarly, Rachel further reiterates the importance of privacy basing on the individuals privacy and his or her personal relationship. According to this account, he argues that the ability of an individual to control who can access him or her or access to the information about them allows the individual to maintain the variety of relationship he or she can maintain without infringing his or her privacy.

He states that it is important to separate our associations, to some extent at least, if we are to keep different relationship with different people. Also, our feeling that our privacy is nobody else business help to shape the nature of the relationship that we have with other people (Rachels 157). Rachel, however, objects to this idea, stating that, at some point our privacy is often someone else business. For an instant a doctor is entailed to know our medical records to keep track of our health just as our employers is entitled to know our financial records such as our salary, and so it is an individual’s choice to decide whether to get into such relationships or not (Rachel 159).

According to Thomson’s view on why people maintain their privacy, the key aspect in understanding the right to a person’s privacy first realizes that there is nothing special about this right as there are not a distinct cluster of right in which this right belong to. He points out that the right to privacy is just as import as the other rights, however, it is important to regard this right to the special interest that it protects. We can then conclude that our privacy will dictate the kind of relationship that we have with other people and the ability to maintain this privacy will determine if we will get into such relationship or not.

Works CitedRachels J,. “Why Privacy is Important”. Truth-Telling and Confidentiality (TT&C). 61.4(2011): 156-161.