Kant, (Big) Data and Privacy

In previous work, I defended a desert-sensitive reading of Kant’s theory of justice, in particular of aspects of this theory related to equal opportunities (e.g., Baiasu 2024). One significant problem facing desert-sensitive theories of justice is the so-called Epistemological Problem (Moriarty 2005; for discussion, see, for instance, Baiasu 2021): a basis for a deserved reward is something for which the deserving person can claim credit, but natural and social factors influence a person’s actions and features, so any desert-sensitive theory of justice needs to respond to the challenge of isolating that portion of a person’s achievements for which she can claim credit. Recent technological developments make easier both the collection and processing of data about individuals, which can help us in addressing the Epistemological Problem; while new technologies have led to previously unimagined ways of getting information about individuals, it has also led to worries concerning our privacy. (Roessler and DeCew 2023) This paper is designed to make a first step towards an investigation of these worries by looking at Kant’s account of privacy (e.g., Varden 2020) and examining the normative implications it has for an attempt to answer the Epistemological Problem. References Baiasu, S. (2024) “Kant, Equal Opportunities and Merit”, in Belgrade Philosophical Annual. 37(3): 51-72. Baiasu, S. (2021) “Distributive justice and the epistemological argument against desert”, in Academia Letters. Article 127. URL: https://doi.org/10.20935/AL127. Moriarty, J. (2005) “The Epistemological Argument Against Desert”, in Utilitas. 17(2): 205-21. Roessler, B. and DeCew, J. (2023) “Privacy”, in Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition). E. N. Zalta and U. Nodelman (eds). URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/privacy/ Varden, H. (2021) “Kant and Privacy”, in A. Lyssy and C. Yeomans (eds) Kant on Morality, Humanity and Legality. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.