Diogenes in Marsascala

The foundations of a liberal society rest partly on the distinction between private and public life. Fundamental it may be but the distinction is often misunderstood. It does not mean simply that public and private should be kept separate and independent. God bless a dirty old man from ancient Greece who may help us see better what is at stake.

Diogenes the Cynic thought the only life on offer was a dog's life (cynic is derived from the classical Greek for dog). He thought the very notion of public decency was humbug and showed his contempt by going about stark naked, using a barrel as a home and masturbating in public.

By behaving as though public life did not exist, Diogenes lost his private life.

He did have a private existence, which displayed his personal preferences and choices. But no private life - no privacy, no personal enclosure.

So while it may be tempting to believe that valuing privacy depends on weakening the hold of public life on us, we should think again. The protection of private liberties depends on a strong sense of public life and public goods. Private and public are distinct but interdependent.

The relationship between them is not straightforward. Take the recent case (What Women Don't Need, letters, The Times, June 7) of three women whose day at a Marsascala beach was spoiled by a series of peeping toms who were, shall we say, "diogenating" in full view.

The women had their private life disturbed by an attack on their right to two public goods. The beach is a public good - a concrete thing that belongs to all of us collectively. We have a right to enjoy it by using it privately, as long as we do not impede others' enjoyment. And security is a public good - an abstract thing but no less real: after the police failed to turn up, the women ended up cutting short their day at the beach.

This beach has become a place where such sexual harassment occurs frequently. As its public goods have become degraded, so have the private lives of most people who go there.

It is worth enumerating the different kinds of interdependency between private and public life since we often confuse or overlook them. Take Gay Pride marches.

Some might see their participation as public support for private preferences - a show of solidarity. Others will see the march as a public validation of a private lifestyle - an endorsement and show of conviction. Still others might see this as the occasion of a public display of their private preferences - an act of witness.

What would push me to attend is a fourth reason: There is a public interest in insisting that the dignity of all citizens is respected. I have recently heard of too many cases of clearly unjustified discrimination against gay men by certain commercial companies. If I sit by while their rights are eroded, I will be allowing the branch on which my own rights rest to be sawn off.

These four reasons all involve a relationship between private and public life - but the stakes, motivation, level of conviction and argument are not the same in each case. They involve different public goods. Sorting out what they are helps us sort out the issues.

And, boy, do we have issues to sort out. The protection of the environment raises several questions. If hunting is a tradition, does this make it a public good?

Should old village cores be hived off from development zones? Is there a public good whose worth outweighs the importance of private property rights?

It has become easier to recognise public goods when discussing the environment. It is still not quite the case with social institutions like marriage. The notion of public interest has been so monopolised by the anti-divorce campaigners that many people who would like divorce introduced end up arguing that there is no public interest in it whatsoever.

A closer look would show that recognising marriage as a public good would, under some circumstances, actually strengthen the case for the introduction of divorce.

But it would also mean accepting that there is an abstract thing we own in common that we have a responsibility for - keeping the public good meaningful is vital for the meaningfulness of our private married lives; that is, if the right to remarry is to remain something worth arguing for.

For the duration of this Parliament, we are going to keep coming up face to face with issues where arguments for personal liberties will seem to require that everyone else gets out of our lives. But we would be in a better position to safeguard the conditions of liberty if we recognised how much they depended on a range of things that we have to care for in common.

ranierfsadni@europe.com