The news that Aurora accused James Holmes had sought psychiatric help may broaden the Australian discussion of the secrecy of confession.
This debate has generally focused on whether priests can be exempted on religious grounds from the duty of disclosing to the authorities crimes revealed in confession. The inclusion of psychiatrists raises a larger and more important question: can the exemption of certain privileged conversations from the duty of disclosure be justified on the grounds of the public good?
Most arguments made for compelling disclosure do not address this question. They generally appeal to the consequences of the failure to disclose the crimes of, say, a recidivist abuser. The possibility that several more children may be abused, with all the lasting harm caused to them as well as to their families and friends, is simply assumed to outweigh the harm caused by the breach of confidentiality.
That this assumption is not self-evident can be seen if we consider the similarly shaped argument that has been made for torturing terrorist suspects. Some have argued that the lives that might be saved by extracting information about planned bombings would outweigh the suffering of the person tortured, and so justify its use.
Critics of this position argue, correctly in my view, that the use of torture harms more than the person tortured. It also damages those who apply and approve it, and weakens the respect for human dignity that is fundamental to any decent society. So it should be rejected on the grounds of the public good.
I believe it is also in the public good to offer legal protection for the confidentiality of confession and some other conversations. The public benefit arises from the importance of the intimately personal space in which we consider our lives, reflect on our desires and the fractures in our lives, and deliberate how we feel called to live.
This space of self-reflectiveness is cultivated by many religions and philosophies. It is a space of freedom both in the sense that we give ourselves freely to ideas, to ways of living and to people, and in the sense that it must be free from constraint if our humanity is to flourish.
It is in the public interest to