Shared Responsibility to Enforce Moral Norms

One might argue that bystanders to wrongs and harms share a responsibility to provide aid spe­cifically by contributing to the promulgation and enforcement of morally appropriate norms (Calhoun 1989, Springer 2013).

These days, witnesses to other people’s wrongdoing increasingly use public forums for enfor­cing moral norms. Most people in moderately affluent societies walk around with smartphones in their pockets that enable them to film problematic events in progress. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook enable ordinary people to communicate with the public at large, that is, with anyone in the world who has an internet connection. Ordinary people can also join their voices with others who share their concerns relatively easily, such as through the use of hashtags and re-posting. In these ways, individual actions become, and are often intended to become, parts of collective actions. I suspect that the increasing preference for collective action is, at least in part, motivated by an interest to improve social norms, rather than simply to chas­tise specific wrongdoers.

Social media provides groups of bystanders with a broad variety of methods for holding wrongdoers accountable. These include identifying instances of moral wrongdoing, such as, the practice of publicly posting and sharing videos of wrongdoing.

A number of arguments may be provided in defense of these public, group-based efforts to enforce moral norms. Arguably, a community does not really accept that a certain class of actions is wrong unless there are social practices in place that generally sanction such actions. For this reason, one might argue, the responsibility to maintain moral standards for behavior is a responsibility that is primarily attributable to a group. This idea may shed light on the fact that many social media efforts to “name and shame” are aimed at forms of wrongdoing that have previously been widely tolerated, such as discrimination against transgender people and sexual harassment in the workplace. For example, the #MeToo movement appears to have started as bystanders to particular women’s accusations of sexual assault or harassment reported that they too had been experienced similar mistreatment (Shugerman 2017). In so doing, they supported the credibility of the accusers and also created a greater awareness of both the prevalence and harmfulness of these forms of abuse.

By failing to enforce moral norms in some way, one might argue, witnesses to wrongdoing miss an opportunity to do good or provide aid to the wrongdoer (who needs to reform), the community as a whole, or the victim. Other arguments suggest that, in failing to enforce moral norms, bystanders commit wrongs themselves. At least in some circumstances, as we have already noted in sections 22.2 and 22.3, passivity in the face of wrongdoing makes one com­plicit. The particular wrong of contributing to a victim’s sense of isolation by failing to respond is sometimes characterized as abandonment (Harvey 1996; Walker 2006; Gillespie 2016). More broadly, one might argue that in failing to correct patterns of injustice, one allows them to con­tinue. In failing to enforce morality, one permits wrongdoing.

Yet, the social enforcement of moral norms, especially by the collective and public methods that I highlight in this section, raises a number of concerns. Let’s begin by noting that being subjected to moral criticism is typically a humbling, emotionally painful experience. These emotions are magnified when criticism is public and combined with expressions of anger, indignation, or contempt. Public criticisms also predictably damage the target’s reputation and reduce other people’s willingness to interact with or trust her.

At least many of the practices discussed in this section can be characterized as a kind of informal, social punishment for wrongdoing (Radzik forthcoming). Even those actions that are not intended as punishment may well be experienced as punitive by their targets. Practices of punishment reasonably raise questions about proportionality. Because informal, social punish­ment is not controlled by a centralized authority (as are the punishments typically imposed by the state, schools or employers), it is notoriously difficult to match the degree of hard treatment to the wrongdoer’s level of desert.

Similarly, once “naming and shaming” campaigns get started, there is no controlling how many participants they will attract or what the ramifications of such attention will be. Journalist Jon Ronson details one example of an ordinary woman who posted a poorly formulated joke on Twitter that was interpreted as racist (Ronson 2015).Within hours, she had been condemned by tens of thousands of people, fired from her job, and turned away by her family. Longer-term, the effects resemble PTSD. While she may well have deserved the first condemnatory message and the second, at some point the punishment surely became excessive. These concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the internet never forgets. Records of one’s transgressions remain easily discoverable indefinitely.⁵

Other criticisms of social punishment practiced by bystanders focus on issues of desert. Accusations of wrongdoing may be simply inaccurate, or overlook legitimate excuses or justifications. Targets may find it difficult to defend themselves online. Passionate condemnations make for flashier posts and re-posts than corrections of the record. Other problems involve the public shaming of things that are not morally wrong (such as weight problems), of people who should not be held accountable (such as young children), in language that is morally inappro­priate in itself (including bullying and threatening language), and of moral wrongs and vices that are simply not the public’s business. This last example raises questions about who has the authority to engage in the public moral criticism or social punishment of another person and on what grounds (Cohen 2006; Radzik 2011; Friedman 2013; Herstein 2017).

Other arguments against joining in social media campaigns that identify, condemn or punish moral wrongdoing might rest on the temptations to vice that such campaigns present. Intentions to hold wrongdoers accountable or support victims may mask deeper, less admirable motiv­ations, such as a sense of self-righteousness, voyeurism, or cruelty (Simon 1989; Fullinwider 2005; Bicknell 2010). Indulging in the public shaming of others, while remaining anonymous oneself, contributes to these risks. While critics sometimes have legitimate reasons for remaining anonymous, including protection from unreasonable or excessive forms of retaliation, ano­nymity blocks accountability for their own choices.

Finally, public shaming and social punishment can be counterproductive. The pain and shame of such experiences may cause wrongdoers to reject correction without sincerely reflecting on whether it is apt. Public shaming is also commonly charged with having a chilling effect on speech. When expressing one’s views comes with the risk of being publicly vilified, then one may reasonably decide that it is better not to express oneself at all. The result will be a loss of the benefits of discourse all around, including the retreat of individuals into “information bubbles” where they will only interact with like-minded people who will confirm their opinions. While there is certainly something to this concern, it is the sort of objection that tends to be raised opportunistically. Expressing moral criticism is “fighting the good fight” until it hits a bit too close to home. One might also worry that the objection is raised disproportionately often against people who have traditionally been silenced (Cooper 2017).

Reflecting on the disadvantages of these public, group-based forms of moral criticism may recommend the preference for rebuking wrongdoers in private (assuming, of course, that one has the proper authority to criticize at all). Privately correcting others may reduce the severity of the concerns about proportionality, desert and unintended consequences described above. However, we might also worry that practices of purely private correction are more likely to simply reproduce entrenched views about values, leaving less powerful victims isolated in smaller communities where their victimization may not be recognized or taken seriously.

22.5