Enforcing social norms: The morality of public shaming

Abstract

, available at http://jonathanforeman.info/the-timothy-hunt-witch-hunt-commentary-sept-2015/. Some of the details of this quote are disputed. See Dan Waddell and Paula Higgins, 'Saving Tim Hunt'. Medium, 9 th November 2015, available at https://medium.com/@danwaddell/saving-tim-hunt-97db23c6ee93. 3 See https://twitter.com/connie_stlouis/status/607813783075954688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw. 4 It bears emphasizing that Connie St Louis was herself subject to a backlash from defenders of Hunt. We address this feature of the case in the final section of the paper. 5 Quoted in Robin McKie, 'Tim Hunt: 'I've been hung out to dry. They haven't even bothered to ask for my side of affairs'', The Guardian, 13 th June 2015, available at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/13/tim-hunt-hung-out-to-dry-interview-mary-collins. 6 As reported by Jon Ronson. See http://www.lbc.co.uk/sexism-shame-scientist-considered-suicide-124010.

Morally Motivated Networked Harassment as Normative Reinforcement

“…I build on this feminist scholarship to connect networked harassment and social shaming. I am particularly interested in understanding how networked harassment functions as a method of social shaming which, as Kate Klonick (2015) writes, “involves the attempt to enforce either a real, or perceived, violation of a social norm.” Shaming is thus a form of public moral criticism which serves to uphold social norms through stigma and humiliation (Billingham & Parr, 2020; Nussbaum, 2009). In contrast to the previous literature, my research shows that networked harassment takes place across ideological boundaries and is used by members of left-leaning and nonpolitical networks as well as those on the right.…”

Freedom of expression

“…Billingham and Parr (2020a, 2020b) outline some criteria aimed at guiding this assessment (2020b, pp. 1001‐6).…”

Extreme Speech, Democratic Deliberation, and Social Media

“…Much of the important work left to be done is indeed philosophical. For example, even if publicly shaming illiberal citizens on the internet were an effective way of standing up for liberal values, there remain important questions about whether it is morally permissible (see Billingham and Parr 2020). But as with so many applied normative topics, much of the important work that is yet to be done is not strictly philosophical, but rather empirical.…”