Table Of ContentBusiness Ethics After The Global
Financial Crisis
The global financial crisis (GFC) that began in 2007 concentrated attention
on the morality of banking and financial activities. Just as mainstream
businesses became increasingly defined by their financial performance,
banks, it seemed, got themselves—and everyone else—into trouble through
an over-emphasis on themselves as commercial enterprises that need pay
little attention to traditional banking virtues or ethics. Although the GFC
had many causes, criticism was legitimately levelled at banks over the
ethics of mortgage creation, excessive securitisation, executive
remuneration and high-pressure customer sales tactics, amongst other
things. These criticisms mirror those that have been levelled at business
more generally, particularly in the last decade, although the backdrop
provided by the GFC is more dramatic and the outcomes of supposed
wrongdoing more severe.
This book focuses on business ethics after the GFC, not on the crisis
itself but how we should respond to it. The GFC has focused minds on the
proper role of ethics in the understanding and conduct of business activity,
but it is essential to look beyond the crisis to address the deeper challenges
that it highlights.
The aim of this volume is to present examples of the latest
philosophically informed thinking across a range of ethical issues that relate
to business activity, using the banks and the GFC—the consequences of
which continue to reverberate—as a point of departure. The book will be of
great value to researchers, academics, practitioners and students interested
in business, ethics in general, and business ethics in particular.
Christopher Cowton is Professor of Financial Ethics and former Dean at
Huddersfield Business School, University of Huddersfield, UK.
James Dempsey was, from 2012 to 2015, Research Fellow on the UK Arts
and Humanities Research Council major project FinCris on moral
responsibilities in the financial crisis. He started his own business in 2016,
which he endeavours to run ethically.
Tom Sorell is Professor of Politics and Philosophy at the University of
Warwick, UK, where he leads the Interdisciplinary Ethics Research Group.
He led the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council major project FinCris
on responsibilities in the financial crisis (2013–2016).
Routledge Studies in Business Ethics
Originating from both normative and descriptive philosophical
backgrounds, business ethics implicitly regulates areas of behaviour which
influence decision making, judgment, behaviour and objectives of the
leadership and employees of an organization. This series seeks to analyse
current and leading edge issues in business ethics, and the titles within it
examine and reflect on the philosophy of business, corporations and
organizations pertaining to all aspects of business conduct. They are
relevant to the conduct of both individuals and organizations as a whole.
Based in academic theory but relevant to current organizational policy, the
series welcomes contributions addressing topics including: ethical strategy;
sustainable policies and practices; finance and accountability; CSR;
employee relations and workers’ rights; law and regulation; economic and
taxation systems.
The Ethics of Neoliberalism
The Business of Making Capitalism Moral
Peter Bloom
Integrity in Business and Management
Edited by Marc Orlitzky and Manjit Monga
Corporate Social Responsibility in Emerging Economies
Reality and Illusion
Cosmina Leila Voinea and Cosmin Fratostiteanu
Neoliberalism, Management and Religion
Re-examining the Spirits of Capitalism
Edward Wray-Bliss
Business Ethics After The Global Financial Crisis
Lessons From The Crash
Edited by Christopher Cowton, James Dempsey, and Tom Sorell
For more information about this series please visit:
http://www.routledge.com
Business Ethics After The Global
Financial Crisis
Lessons From The Crash
Edited by Christopher Cowton, James Dempsey, and Tom Sorell
First published 2019
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Taylor & Francis
The right of Christopher Cowton, James Dempsey, and Tom Sorell to be identified as the authors of
the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-33050-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44783-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
CHRISTOPHER COWTON, JAMES DEMPSEY AND TOM SORELL
2 Is Financialisation a Vice? Perspectives From Virtue Ethics and
Catholic Social Teaching
ALEJO JOSÉ G. SISON AND IGNACIO FERRERO
3 On the Morality of Banking, the Exploitation Tradition and the New
Challenges of the Global Financial Crisis
ADRIAN WALSH
4 How Competition Harmed Banking: The Need for a Pelican Gambit
THOMAS DONALDSON
5 Contemporary Laws and Regulation: An Argument for Less Law,
More Justice
RONALD DUSKA AND TARA RADIN
6 Freedom in Finance: The Importance of Epistemic Virtues and
Interlucent Communication
BOUDEWIJN DE BRUIN AND RICHARD ENDÖRFER
7 Aristotelian Lessons After the Global Financial Crisis: Banking,
Responsibility, Culture and Professional Bodies
CHRISTOPHER MEGONE
8 Professional Responsibility and the Banks
CHRISTOPHER COWTON
9 Liability for Corporate Wrongdoing
JAMES DEMPSEY
10 The Bankers and the ‘Nameless Virtue’
TOM SORELL
11 Moralising Economic Desert
ALEXANDER ANDERSSON AND JOAKIM SANDBERG
Index
Contributors
Alexander Andersson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy,
Linguistics and Theory of Science at the University of Gothenburg,
Sweden.
Christopher Cowton is Professor of Financial Ethics and former Dean at
Huddersfield Business School, University of Huddersfield, UK.
Boudewijn de Bruin is Professor of Financial Ethics in the Faculty of
Philosophy at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
James Dempsey was, from 2012 to 2015, Research Fellow on the UK Arts
and Humanities Research Council major project FinCris on moral
responsibilities in the financial crisis. He started his own business in
2016, which he endeavours to run ethically.
Thomas Donaldson is Mark O. Winkelman Professor of Legal Studies &
Business Ethics at the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States.
Ronald Duska, now deceased, was former Charles Lamont Post Chair of
Ethics at The American College as well as an emeritus professor of
Rosemont College, United States.
Richard Endörfer is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy,
Linguistics and Theory of Science at the University of Gothenburg,
Sweden.
Ignacio Ferrero is Professor of Business Ethics and Dean of the School of
Economics and Business at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
Christopher Megone is Professor of Inter-Disciplinary Applied Ethics at
the University of Leeds, UK.
