Red lights should be placed where they will be visible to...

Red lights should be placed where they will be visible to operators who can respond to them. This suggests two important desiderata of a system of moral warnings for corporate entities. First, analogous to the visibility of the red lights is the effectiveness of the moral warning system. The National News Council in the U.S. provides an example of a warning system that failed largely because of its invisibility.

The NNC was designed to investigate charges brought against the media of malicious misreporting and other unethical practices. The leaders of the industry, however, tended to simply ignore the criticisms made by the NNC. The NNC was unable to…