Richard Lippke's Work, Privacy, And Autonomy

Assignment 8 Richard L. Lippke is a Senior Scholar in the Department of Criminal Justice at Indiana University. Lippke is also the author of numerous articles in ethics and philosophy of criminal law. One of the articles, “Work, Privacy, and Autonomy,” features arguments about privacy and human autonomy and how they affect each other in the workplace. Lippke touches on polygraphs, drug screenings, and surveillance as they all contribute to one’s privacy, which leads to autonomy interference. In this essay I will be summarizing Lippke’s argument on privacy, autonomy, and why I disagree with his declarations. For starters, according to Lippke, autonomy is the capacity of persons to make rationally reflective choices about their ends and activities. For example, when a manager sets the goal of a project, he can grant an employee autonomy to allow him to find best way to achieve that goal. Lippke states that, because of its relation to autonomy, privacy is valuable to the employees as well. Privacy is seen as two things: to have say-so over some information given about ourselves, and to have some control over

With a distant relationship with the employer, giving out personal information can be a burden on some people’s privacy, which leads people to feel they have less autonomy. Eighty-four percent of employers require Pre-Employment Drug Screenings, some of which, require someone to witness the urinalysis take place. A witnessed urinalysis can heavily diminish an individual’s privacy. Such tests like the Pre-Employment Drug Screenings, and Polygraphs can undermine the trustworthiness of an employee. The more employees are surveyed, and continuously tested the less likely they are to feel as if they control their own life in the workplace. In the end, Lippke thinks this could eliminate or lessen unemployment, and the need to lie or exaggerate to obtain a