The Ethicist- Should I have hung up?

My sisters called me on a conference line, hoping to connect the three of us for an important discussion. I wasn’t home, so one sister left a voice mail message and then disconnected — or at least she thought she did. But my voice mail kept recording as she and my other sister continued their conversation. When I returned home and retrieved the message, was I obliged to stop listening and hang up after my sister believed she had ended the call? JANET FLETCHER, NAPA, CALIF.

This is a much harder question than it initially appears. I think most people would reflexively concede that everyone has the right to listen to whatever shows up in her voice mail (and if this were simply a legal matter, I would agree). But it’s not that simple. What you’re really asking about is the ethics of eavesdropping, a conflict I find almost impossible to resolve.

When I’m walking down the street, riding the subway or sitting alone in a bar, I eavesdrop on other people’s conversations constantly. It’s almost an addiction. I can’t stop myself. Now, my motive for doing so is (seemingly) neutral. I just find it interesting. Still, I always wonder if it’s mildly immoral. It would be obviously unethical to tap someone’s phone or place a glass against my neighbor’s closed door — this would constitute recreational spying without justification. But what if my eavesdropping is simply a product of being wherever I happen to be? What if the conversation comes to me without any effort on my end? Am I obligated toignore all dialogue that isn’t intended for my ears? I’ve worked out various rationalizations to justify my actions: I convince myself that listening is acceptable as long as I don’t know the people and I don’t tell anyone what I overhear. But I know these are pale excuses. There is, I think, something unethical (and arguably dehumanizing) about surreptitiously using other people’s private lives as a form of entertainment.

Your case, however, is even more complicated. For one, the information was delivered directly to your voice mail. Listening to your own messages is normal. It could also be reasonably argued that whatever conversation your sisters had was intended for you to hear, as you were originally supposed to be on the call. Still another argument could be that — if your sisters were indeed talking trash behind your back — you deserved to know this. Of course, you could only verify that suspicion by listening to the entire conversation; you’d need to invade their privacy in order to find out if their privacy warranted invasion, which is a little like justifying illegal police surveillance by pointing out all the criminals it allows the police to arrest. This is the paradox Alfred Hitchcock referred to as “rear-window ethics.”

Judging by the way your letter is written, this event clearly happened a while ago. The bridge has already been crossed: You either listened to the message or you didn’t. My assumption is that you did. If so, were you in the wrong? I have a professional obligation to say that you were. Yet if placed in your position, I know what I would have done, and it would not have involved the delete key.

This Column Entry deals with the idea of eavesdropping, and if it morally acceptable to do so. The woman in question has accidentally overheard his sister continue speaking after she thought the voicemail had closed, listening in to conversation she was not meant to hear. No information is given about what she might have heard.

 From my perspective, there’s really nothing wrong with what the woman did. I would not even call it eavesdropping at this point due to the fact that the woman did not go looking for this information, but instead, it came to her. Of course, she could have hung up the voicemail once she realized it was not part of the message intended for her, but is it really her responsibility to be wary on whether or not what she hears is intended for her? If that were the case, she should walk around town with noise cancelling headphones and only listen in when being personally referred to. There is, however, the argument that what she hears is none of his business. In the example where a person walks by an open door and hears his friends tell an embarrassing story, is he morally allowed to stop and continue listening to the story? I think that in this case, it’s a different situation, as it wasn’t by mistake of the friend that he heard what was said, but by the curiosity of the person in question.

 The ethicist agrees that the message in question was delivered to the person, therefore it was her legal right to listen in, and even more so if it was talking about her. He does not claim that it is the right thing to do as, ultimately, it was not information intended for her. The ethicist, however, lets his personal bias get in the way, as he mentions his own experiences with eavesdropping on people and how often he does it. He uses his own emotion as a way of knowing in this case, as he might try to defend himself for doing something that would be considered unacceptable by social standards, even though it is commonly done. If we were to use reason as a way of knowing in this situation, it is evident that it is not morally acceptable to be listening to conversation that does not involve us, due to the fact that it is also not fair on the person who is speaking thinking that what they are saying is private. Invasion of privacy is the better word, regardless of location. Just because a location is public does not make the conversation so. From my own standpoint, I would not like for people to listen in to my conversations that I have with friends in public.