I explore the role of hypernorms in the Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) of Thomas Donaldson and Thomas W. Dunfee, who suggested that hypernorms are a necessary condition for the rejection of cultural relativism and justification of moral norms within and across social communities. Hypernorms are, thus, a significant part of a conception of international business ethics. I highlight philosophical problems that emerge in attempts to identify and justify hypernorms. These problems have not been sufficiently addressed in the ISCT; therefore, I will discuss the discourse–ethical contributions of contemporary German philosophers toward resolving the justification problem with regards to universal norms. Discourse ethics builds on the linguistic and the pragmatic turns in philosophy and develops procedural rules for the assessment of norms. I explore variants of discourse ethics with regards to their concept of justification and discuss the implications of discourse ethical procedures for the justification of norms and actions.
This paper examines the sustainability disclosure in the banking industry with respect to potential greenwashing. We build a theoretical framework to assess the sustainability disclosure along materiali-ty criteria in the banking industry and apply this framework to the corporate sustainability reporting of two global systemically important banks. The results of our case study point toward the existence of greenwashing mainly in the most material area of the sustainability disclosure of our sample banks, but also highlight the shortcomings of existing disclosure guidelines to adequately account for material sector-specific sustainability issues.
