ABSTRACT
Ever since Warren and Brandeis defi ned the right to privacy as “the right to be let alone,” it has been widely held in both the legal and the philosophical literature that a violation of one’s privacy will necessarily also compromise one’s autonomy.1 This purported connection between privacy and autonomy is also widely accepted within the bioethics literature, with the protection of the privacy of a patient’s medical records frequently being justifi ed on the grounds that this is required by respect for patient autonomy. Sabine Michalowski, for example, notes explicitly that “One justifi cation for the protection of medical confi dentiality is based on the premise that it seeks to guarantee respect for a patient’s autonomy and privacy when entering a professional relationship with a physician,”2 while James W. Jones holds that “Confi - dentiality in the professional relationship is a duty derived from respect for the patient’s autonomy.”3 Yet even though the view that respect for patient autonomy requires the protection of the confi dentiality of patients’ medical records there has been surprisingly few arguments offered in favor of this view. This paucity of argument in the bioethical literature on autonomy and patient confi dentiality would be understandable if it had already been established within the philosophical or legal literature at large that a violation of a person’s privacy would necessarily serve to compromise her autonomy. It is thus all the more striking that even in this more general literature very few arguments have been offered in support of this generally accepted claim.
