> The problem is that we've been manipulated to believe privacy has no real moral claim.
I agree. We've also been manipulated to behave as if we believed property rights automatically trump other morals.
My point isn't that we should ignore the morality of these issues. My point is the morality of these issues can't be talked about in isolation because moral values aren't orthogonal to each other. Morality also shouldn't be discussed without taking pragmatic realities into account. You have to balance the two. Not everything is cut and dry.
How about, "A 2 year old was kidnapped 10 minutes ago from the apartment complex you are leaving from. We need to be sure the child is not in your trunk."
Good luck getting society to give you a free pass in that situation.
I have... maybe I'm missing something here. Aren't steego and I saying the same thing - he's saying it explicitly and I'm saying it by example?
Maybe what I'm missing is what you were trying to say with the "search your car" analogy. Is it that privacy has a moral component to it? If so I can agree with that. I thought that "What argument can you use against it?" was meant to rhetorically imply that there is no counter-argument.
You still need to weigh them against conflicting values, but if someone doesn't agree with you that issue X has a moral component at all (or if you disagree whether it's positive or negative), then you are bound to disagree forever.
When an officer asks "why? What have you got to hide?", they've turned it into a practical issue and removed the moral component that I believe exists. That's as ridiculous (to me) as asking why someone doesn't want to be punched in the stomach ("why? Did you just have abdominal surgery or something?").
Tell it to the ghost of Houdini.
Say someone says "let me search your car, what have you got to hide?" What argument can you use against it? The problem is that we've been manipulated to believe privacy has no real moral claim. In reality, you should be able to just say "it's private" and not feel compelled to provide further explanation.
It's not so different from being punched in the stomach. You aren't going to die, so what's the problem? You heal and everything is fine. So why won't you let me punch you in the stomach?
Theft is, similarly, a moral issue. If I make something, and someone takes it, I will feel bad. Much worse than if I had to sell it to pay taxes (even if I disagree with the tax policy).