Department of Values, Technology and Innovation, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2017 Oct;23(5):1289-1306. doi: 10.1007/s11948-017-9909-z. Epub 2017 Apr 11.
While states have agreed to substantial reduction of emissions in the Paris Agreement, the success of the Agreement strongly depends on the cooperation of large Multinational Corporations. Short of legal obligations, we discuss the effectiveness and moral legitimacy of voluntary approaches based on naming and shaming. We argue that effectiveness and legitimacy are closely tied together; as voluntary approaches are the only alternative to legally imposed duties, they are most morally defensible particularly if they would be the most effective in reducing the harmful greenhouse gases. Shaming could be made effective if states could prompt more corporations to accept voluntary cuts with high gains-such as public acknowledgements-and high losses, such as reporting on noncompliance and public exposure (naming), along with some kind of condemnation (shaming). An important challenge of such voluntary approaches is how to ensure compliance with the agreed upon commitments, while avoiding greenwashing or selective disclosure. Certain institutional arrangements are inevitable, including an independent measurement, monitoring and verification mechanism. In this paper, we discuss the potentials and ethical pitfalls of shaming as a strategy when corporations have a direct relationship with consumers, but also when they are in a relationship with governments and other corporations.
虽然各国已在《巴黎协定》中同意大幅减排，但该协定的成功在很大程度上取决于大型跨国公司的合作。在缺乏法律义务的情况下，我们讨论了基于点名羞辱的自愿性方法的有效性和道德合法性。我们认为，有效性和合法性紧密相连；由于自愿性方法是对法律强制义务的唯一替代，因此它们在道德上最具辩护性，特别是如果它们在减少有害温室气体方面最有效。如果各国能够促使更多公司接受具有高收益（如公开承认）和高损失（如不合规报告和公开曝光（点名））的自愿减排措施，羞辱就可以变得有效，同时还可以进行某种谴责（羞辱）。这种自愿性方法的一个重要挑战是如何确保遵守商定的承诺，同时避免绿色清洗或选择性披露。某些制度安排是不可避免的，包括独立的测量、监测和验证机制。在本文中，我们讨论了在公司与消费者直接相关以及与政府和其他公司相关时，羞辱作为一种策略的潜力和道德陷阱。
