Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis: Why Incompetence is Worse than Greed

  • 4h 33m
  • Boudewijn de Bruin
  • Cambridge University Press
  • 2015

In this topical book, Boudewijn de Bruin examines the ethical 'blind spots' that lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. He argues that the most important moral problem in finance is not the 'greed is good' culture, but rather the epistemic shortcomings of bankers, clients, rating agencies and regulators. Drawing on insights from economics, psychology and philosophy, de Bruin develops a novel theory of epistemic virtue and applies it to racist and sexist lending practices, subprime mortgages, CEO hubris, the Madoff scandal, professionalism in accountancy and regulatory outsourcing of epistemic responsibility. With its multidisciplinary reach, Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis will appeal to scholars working in philosophy, business ethics, economics, psychology and the sociology of finance. The many concrete examples and case studies mean that this book will also prove useful to policy-makers and regulators.

In this Book

  • Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis─Why Incompetence is Worse than Greed
  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • Financial Ethics: Virtues in the Market
  • Epistemic Ethics─Virtues of the Mind
  • Internalizing Virtues─The Clients
  • Case Study I─Primes and Subprimes
  • Incorporating virtue─the banks
  • Case Study II─Nerds and Quants
  • Communicating Virtues─The Raters
  • Case Study III─Scores and Accounts
  • Conclusion
  • Glossary
  • References
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