Transparency is Surveillance

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O’Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action invent different ones public consumption. deception. I work out the details argument worsen conclusion. focus – is, over expert domains. offer two versions criticism. First, epistemic intrusion argument: The drive experts explain reasoning non-experts. But are, by nature, often inaccessible So demand can pressure act only those ways which justification. Second, intimate many cases practical deliberation, relevant community not easily explicable who lack particular shared background. transparency, then, pressures members abandon special understanding sensitivity arises from experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is form surveillance. By forcing into explicit sphere, roots corruption — also inhibits full application skill, sensitivity, subtle understandings. difficulty here basic fact human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual’s capacities. We all depend experts, makes us vulnerable biases corruption. if we try wholly secure our leash groups pursuing goals taking actions be justified non-expert then will undermine expertise. need both essential tension. This deep dilemma; admits no neat resolution, painful compromise.