Secrets

On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation

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In this "distinguished and necessary book" (The New York Times Book Review) Bok discusses the ethical issues raised by secrets and secrecy in government, science, public affairs, family life, psychotherapy and the confessional.

Under what circumstances is it wrong to pry into secrets?
Are there times when a promise of secrecy must be broken?
What about journalists' protection of sources, government suppression of information, covert police activity, and scientific secrecy?
Bok investigates these and other questions.
Sissela Bok is a senior visiting fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Previously, she was a professor of philosophy at Brandeis Univeristy. She is the author of Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public LifeSecrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and RevelationA Strategy for Peace: Human Values and the Threat of WarAlva Myrdal: A Daughter’s MemoirMayhem: Violence as Public EntertainmentCommon Values; and Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to Brain Science. A former member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, Bok is a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.  View titles by Sissela Bok

About

In this "distinguished and necessary book" (The New York Times Book Review) Bok discusses the ethical issues raised by secrets and secrecy in government, science, public affairs, family life, psychotherapy and the confessional.

Under what circumstances is it wrong to pry into secrets?
Are there times when a promise of secrecy must be broken?
What about journalists' protection of sources, government suppression of information, covert police activity, and scientific secrecy?
Bok investigates these and other questions.

Author

Sissela Bok is a senior visiting fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Previously, she was a professor of philosophy at Brandeis Univeristy. She is the author of Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public LifeSecrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and RevelationA Strategy for Peace: Human Values and the Threat of WarAlva Myrdal: A Daughter’s MemoirMayhem: Violence as Public EntertainmentCommon Values; and Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to Brain Science. A former member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, Bok is a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.  View titles by Sissela Bok