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THIS PAPER SETS OUT TO PROVE THAT THERE IS SOMETHING UNIQUE AND UNIQUELY VALUABLE PROTECTED BY THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY. IT DEFINES PRIVACY AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE THAT INVOLVES A COMPLEX OF BEHAVIORS. THE PAPER DEALS WITH THE TWOFOLD RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRIVACY AND PERSONHOOD. THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY PROTECTS THE INDIVIDUAL'S INTEREST IN BECOMING, BEING, AND REMAINING A PERSON.

In response to J. Thomson's argument (see SA0312/I1790) that we need not seek what is common to all rights in right to privacy claims, it is noted that there is a common & unique feature to claims of privacy rights, & this feature is of great value in moral reasoning. Linked with privacy rights are the notions of intimacy & personhood. It is necessary to recognize that privacy is a social practice that involves behaviors of restraint & exists for good reasons. The point of this very complicated social ritual is that it provides a means by which an individual's moral title to his existence is conferred. As such, privacy is a social process recognizing the value of intimacy in regard to the existence of the individual, which is a precondition of personhood. To be a person, an individual must recognize not just his actual capacity to shape his destiny by his choices; he must also recognize that he has an exclusive moral right to shape his destiny. The right to privacy is the right to the existence of a social practice which makes it possible for one to think of this existence as his. It protects an individual's interest in becoming, being, & remaining a person. Modified Author's Summary.

THERE ARE DECISIVE, MORALLY NEUTRAL DEFINITIONS OF THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMAN LIFE--IE, OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN HUMAN BECOMINGS & HUMAN BEINGS, & THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS & HUMAN HAS-BEENS. LIFE-CYCLE, VIABILITY, & PERSONHOOD ACCOUNTS NOTWITHSTANDING, THE BECOMING/BEING BOUNDARY LIES AT THE END OF THE METAMORPHIC PHASE OF (BIOLOGICAL) GENERATIVE DEVELOPMENT. BRAIN-DEATH ACCOUNTS NOTWITHSTANDING, THE BEING/HAS BEEN BOUNDARY LIES AT THE FUNCTIONAL DISINTEGRATION OF THE (BIOLOGICAL) ORGANISM. REASONS ARE GIVEN FOR THINKING THAT, FOR THE PURPOSE OF MORAL THEORY, THESE DEFINITIONS ARE PREFERABLE TO ONES FRAMED IN TERMS OF 'MORALLY RELEVANT' CHARACTERISTICS. AA.

Like all languages, the language of American law can liberate or confine thinking. Its confining power is illustrated by the absence of the radical "group rights" claim in the Bakke litigation despite the prominence of that argument in the popular debate over affirmative discrimination. This absence establishes the limitations of the metaphor developed to give meaning to the concept "persons" in the equal protection context. While capable of investing the corporation with many of the attributes of "personhood" as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment, the metaphor makes absurd the claim of a racial group to exercise rights or privileges distinct from those of its members. This analysis illuminates the metaphorical structure of law language and concludes that the restricted range of metaphorical thinking in law weakens the law's capacity to mediate struggles over social goals.

While some radicals remain in Coll's intending to control them to the creation of a just society, others are more concerned with the new culture or New Age which is emerging, which requires a revolution in consciousness & redefinition of personhood & wealth & of the relation of humanity to nature. The very efforts to achieve justice by increasing econ opportunity through higher educ for those heretofore denied access are contributing to the deadly spiral of production & consumption which is endangering the planet & to the narrowly utilitarian & materialistic definition of self which limits human fulfillment. The New Age discovers a benign abundance in natural process, human association, & the repressed or "unemployed" self. It fosters no-growth econ's, decentralization, "soft" technology aimed at self-sufficiency, & ecological balance. Pop growth & technological advance have made the goal of full employment unrealistic. Thus to educate people for survival, Sch's & Coll's will have to relinquish their credentializing function & requirements, prepare people for a post-vocational world, & generate cooperative & self-actualizing ethics. It seems so unlikely that U structures could be adapted to these ends that many radicals who are very committed to educ believe they can work only outside the academy, building a new culture rather than attempting to convert or undermine existing instit's. Modified HA.