Moral Guardians and the Origins of the Right to Privacy

Abstract

The concept of a legal right to privacy existed long before 1890 when Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis published their much-acclaimed Harvard Law Review article advocating tort liability for invasions of privacy by publication. A number of writers and public intellectuals had already dramatized a need for protecting people from the prying of the press. Their essays upheld Victorian social standards and typically assigned blame to commercial pressures on journalists to satisfy public appetites. Attempting to resolve a conflict between civility and civil liberties, they either endorsed as much self-regulation as possible or called for a legal remedy. Nineteenth-century privacy advocates raised issues of audience tastes and media ethics that remain contentious today.