Concept of Privacy

Most Western nations share our general idea of privacy, as can be seen in the fact that the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which embodies a conception of human rights, includes a provision regarding privacy. There are differing conceptions of what human rights are and how they can or cannot be protected. Much of the history of the discussion of rights as described by Cranston shows that there has been a battle between supporters of natural rights and supporters of positive rights, as if the two had to be mutually exclusive. Yet, in a document like the Universal Declaration, positivist assertions are made for natural rights, offering moral statements requiring that natural rights be upheld. Cranston notes that in the early articles of the Universal Declaration, the language is the language of the old natural rights tradition:

The rights to life, liberty, property, equality, justice, and the pursuit of happiness are spelled out in twenty articles, which name, among other things, the right to freedom of movement; the right to own property alone as well as

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ological barriers. Westin, further states that privacy has four functions: it enables the individual to achieve (1) personal autonomy, (2) emotional release, (3) selfevaluation, and (4) limited and protected communication. Another view is offered by Altman, who suggests that privacy exists in social units composed of combinations of individuals and groups, meaning that privacy is a question of the permeability of boundaries between oneself and others. In this conception, individuals contact others selectively, and the individual's perception of privacy develops from his or her ability to regulate the flow of information efficiently, without interference from the outside (Ying-Keung 1-2). China is another Asian country with a different idea of privacy. The Chinese also do not have a word for "privacy," but this does not mean they do not have the conception in a different form. Based on the four elements cited by Westin, the Chinese show that they place high value on three of the four: solitude, reserve, and intimacy. If solitude implies a boundary between the self and outsiders with which to maintain space for selfevaluation free from interference, then there is a conception of privacy even if there is no such word. Y
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Approximate Word count = 1373
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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