The Importance of Secrecy

“Sometimes it is possible to do good only in secret.” Princeton’s Peter Singer believes that complete transparency is utopian, but that a more transparent world is generally desirable: “How much openness is too much? In Latvia, an artificial-intelligence researcher in the University of Latvia’s computer science department who earlier this year leaked confidential records on the income of bank managers has been praised as a modern “Robin Hood,” because otherwise the public would not have known how much some people were continuing to be paid while their banks were being bailed out with public funds. Each year in Norway, the government publishes the income and wealth of almost every taxpayer. Is that too much transparency? If so, why?”