Why Salacious Gossiping Is Wrong

"Case 1. Salacious Gossip

Suppose that Alice Kong breaks Jones Brown’s heart. In an act of rage, Jones details the intimate moments they shared during their relationship. Although he provides no pictures of the events, he supplies graphic details. Every detail that he shares with his friends about Alice is true. Still, we might think that Jones acted wrongly. If we think Jones acted wrongly, could this kind of gossip be ethically impermissible in general? Call this form of gossip salacious gossip. Some may suggest that engaging in salacious gossip is not wrong. The idea here is that we tend not to think we violate our classmates’ or celebrities’ rights when we spread gossip about them. Magazines salaciously gossip about celebrities, and classmates salaciously gossip about teachers, often to their detriment.

And yet, some may argue that it is hard to see whose rights have been infringed by magazines, classmates, and others who have spread salacious gossip. Moreover, we might think that gossip enables oppressed people to bond in solidarity against their oppressors.

Others may disagree and suggest that there is a right to privacy, which salacious gossip infringes on. Intimate details about our sex lives surely cannot be shared without infringing on our privacy.

1. Does the gossip's truth help make Jones’ actions more justifiable?

2. Is there an important difference between sexually salacious gossip and other gossip that involves disclosing private information?

3. Does Jones have a duty not to share that information?"

(From Ethics Olympiad 2026)

Salacious – deals with sexual or scandalous, indecent matters in general, in an unnecessarily detailed way.

Gossip – informal conversation, and under this context, often about private matters and executed behind the subject(s)’s back.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/salacious-gossip.

https://www.cecilefabre.com/uploads/1/3/6/4/13640562/fabre_morality_of_gossip.pdf

POV: Sexually salacious gossip, like the information spread by Jones, is an infringement of privacy, which means it disrespects moral personhood and relational contracts arising from relationships at least to a certain extent. This is because Alice did not consent to the public spread of intimate details during relationships, including sexual details; she only, by entering a relationship with Jones, consented for Jones to share these moments with her.

In entering such a relation, Alice did indeed consent to Jones to share their intimate moments, perhaps spilling some of her secrets in the way – if it was not the case, she wouldn’t have chosen to enter such a relation. However, there was no relational contract where Alice consented for the public to know. We may show this with an argument by analogy:

Argument: Analogy to Footage-Taking we tend to think that it is wrong for one party to record intimate moments such as sex and then spread the footage to public media. That surely is an infringement of privacy, as such footage is not consented for the public to know in usual intimate relationships, even if the footage is not very clear and is not even as detailed as a carefully-documented account supplied with graphical details. But, how is an undetailed footage morally different from a detailed textual account? It seems absurd to argue that the type of media, which is not morally relevant, determines the moral permissibility of gossip, especially if we grant that Jones was able to supply a comparatively detailed account.

Thus, much as we would not consider one to automatically consent for footage leaking to the public in however intimate relations, we would also analogously consider salacious gossip such as the ones attempted by Jones to be immoral for breaking the right to privacy arising from relational contracts arising from their relationships.

The violation of the duty to the Deontic value comes from the intentional use of a person as only a means to an end. In Jones’s case, this is not simply a using-person-as-means, which may be objected to as actually moral, for instance in the case of a customer using a shopkeeper as a means. It is about the intentional use, which in Anscombe’s definition refers to the goal or the direct means of the composition of the action, not psychological motives. Jones’s disrespect is not a foreseen side-effect; it is part of his very action to humiliate Alice, and the composition of his chain of action entails that humiliation both as an end, as the very reason he salaciously gossips about Alice is to somehow seek revenge, and as a means, since the act of spreading salacious gossip is the humiliation itself. Additionally, Alice is not respected as a person who has dignity, and her only appearance as a human entity only appears as part of the means to which Jones achieves his end.

These two values were demoted without bringing any consequential benefits. We normally would not consider gossiping as a main source of pleasure in our daily lives, and the happiness brought to us would be insignificant against the harm brought to the gossipee. If Alice knew of the gossiping, for each extra gossiper, she would have surely felt significantly more discomfort than the extra pleasure gained by the gossiper. Even if Alice was unaware of the gossiping, the very small happiness gained via gossiping surely cannot outweigh important, direct, and intended violations of duties to the Deontic value and the Socio-relational value, not to mention that the preferences of gossiping might not even be considered good preferences given our arguments.

We might consider one objection:

Analogy to Celebrities Objection people salaciously gossip about celebrities all the time, but we tend to think that there’s nothing impermissible with it. So, why isn’t it analogous with Jones and Alice?

Two responses could be made:

1. It is actually unethical to salaciously gossip about celebrities. We only think it is permissible because that idea has been implanted by those who continuously profit from it (whether an intentional construct or an unintended side product). These people make it so widespread and common as to 1) keep profiting from it and even 2) make people accustomed to it and thus make it less objected. It is common not because it is right, because people profit from it; It seems permissible not because it is actually ethical, but because it is common.
2. Even if we concede that salaciously gossiping about celebrities is indeed less wrong, that is not analogous to normal people. If it is not wrong, it would be because “this is what you consent to by being a celebrity”. Becoming celebrities entails public attention on even private lives, and often those who become celebrities had the option to choose, thus rendering their choice a partial consent at least to being spied on. That kind of consent and acknowledgement is usually non-existent in normal people’s lives, even if they enter close relationships with other individuals willingly. 

Personally, I would follow response 1 and argue that it is not right to salaciously gossip about celebrities. If I am right, the objection by analogy to celebrities fails. If I am wrong, by 2), that objection fails as well, for the two cases are in fact not analogous.

There might be another objection:

Right-To-Speak-Truth Objection Jones is not spreading deceitful content. He is only speaking a truth, a truth to which he has the right to speak if he wishes.

However, we should note that in this case, it is not about whether Jones has a right to speak. Surely he may speak with Alice, or with perhaps others if Alice consented for them to know. It is about whether those who receive are qualified to hear. The right to express or converse certain facts is independent from the right to choose who to converse. The former is indeed fundamental to moral personhood, but in this case, the latter is not: the fact that Jones (supposedly) entered a relationship with Alice willingly means that he has consented to the implicit relational contract arising from the relationship, which means that he cannot discuss it with his friends without Alice’s consent.

A third objection may follow from the fact that Jones had been hurt by Alice:

Reciprocity Objection: Jones only salaciously gossiped about Alice because he is taking his revenge. He had been emotionally hurt by Alice, which does not seem like an upholding of any relational contract arising from their intimate relationship. Thus, he is only acting out of reciprocity.

Or in other words:

Objection via Analogy to Abuse: Jones only salaciously gossiped about Alice because he is taking his revenge. This is analogous to salacious gossiping about abuse, which we may consider to be a way that the oppressed bonds against their oppressors and resist oppression.

First of all, in any relationship, conflict takes place; although emotional damage might not be a good part of intimate relationships, its existence cannot be denied. Abuse, on the other hand, is definitely not part of a healthy relationship. Moreover, in the specific case of Jones, as aforementioned, his entire intention was a violation of the duty towards moral personhood, while should someone be abused and then salaciously gossip about the abuse, at least the intent of the act was to uphold the duty towards moral personhood by attempting to restore the gossiper’s dignity via escaping the abuse. In addition, the act of revenge would always only reduce the total welfare mentioned in the Setup without any other benefit, and in this case, the act of revenge is spilling gossip.

Q1. Does the gossip's truth help make Jones’ actions more justifiable?

POV: Not necessarily. This is complicated and rests on further detail and also the subjects’ personalities.

It is hard to see whether the truthfulness of the salacious gossip changes the balance, for the breaches in question change drastically. If the content of the salacious gossip was a complete fabrication, Jones might be disrespecting the moral personhood of the gossipees to a mild extent; after all, lying to other people, without any other considerations, is certainly pro tanto wrong. That would not happen if he had spoken the truth. However, should the content be truthful, Alice might have been even more hurt, depending on whether she is more upset at false rumors or at being spilled the tea. What remains the same is a breach of the relational contracts made when entering intimate relations, such as not seriously backstabbing each other (which we don’t tend to think of as naturally part of intimate relations) and not revealing information that was not consented for the public or for others to know. However, there are important differences between truthful salacious gossip and fabricated salacious gossip that are categorically distinct and hard to commensurate without assuming other details about the subject.

The Right-To-Speak-Truth Objection may appear again. This has been answered in the Main Stance section.

Q2. Is there an important difference between sexually salacious gossip and other gossip that involves disclosing private information?

POV: They are different. Many other types of “private, disclosing gossip” is unethical via a disrespect of moral personhood by impeaching privacy (such as intimate chats between friends), but sexually salacious gossip is particularly unethical. Moreover, there may be some types of gossip where it does not break a relational contract, for instance where gossip is used as a weapon against long-term abuse or emotional exploitation.

The reason that they are the same in quality is because we don’t tend to view the fact that some detail is sexual as a morally important property. After all, a sexual fact is like a biological fact or a physical property; it by itself is morally irrelevant. Its relevance is instrumental, coming from the intimacy that sexual experience plays in love relationships and the privacy that we have over it, since it is part of our lives, and from no other thing. However, the same arguments apply to other intimate details that may be salaciously gossiped upon. If intimate chat records had been salaciously gossiped upon, it is not wrong because they are textual records; it is wrong because it breaches our privacy and breaks the contract in relationships. Thus, there is a difference between sexually salacious gossip and other types of salacious gossip, but it only comes from the difference in intimacy; Sexual concepts are always more private and unspeakable in most cultures, and sexual gossip will exert greater pressure on the gossipees. E.g. the gossip about personal property may lead to stealing, which is directly towards the property itself. While salacious gossip always exert pressure on gossipees, in terms of moral responsibility and feudal stereotypes.

Q3. Does Jones have a duty not to share that information?

Following from the Main Stance, POV: He has a duty not to share the information.

1. relational contract mentioned above
2. The later influences. If every break-uped couple ends up in similar situations, there’s no trust between lovers.
3. Reduction in total welfare mentioned above¹