Political Leadership and the Social Value of Privacy

Abstract

Candidates for political office undergo close and even crushing public scrutiny of their personal lives by the press and by their political adversaries. Philosophers such as Thomas Nagel have argued that the political process scares off good candidates and becomes immersed in irrelevancies when it obliterates the distinction between the public and the personal. But by paying attention to the private lives of politicians, the electorate may acquire information it deems relevant to public issues, and there are reasons to believe that it is right.