Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis Why Incompetence Is Worse than Greed [Hardcover]

This book examines the decision-making of key stakeholders in the financial services industry through the lens of recent work on epistemic virtues.This topical book examines the ethical 'blind spots' that lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. Using concrete examples and case studies, the author develops a novel theory of epistemic virtue through which he examines the decision making of key stakeholders - the banks, their clients, rating agencies, and regulators.This topical book examines the ethical 'blind spots' that lay at the heart of the global financial crisis. Using concrete examples and case studies, the author develops a novel theory of epistemic virtue through which he examines the decision making of key stakeholders - the banks, their clients, rating agencies, and regulators.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.Foreword; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Financial ethics: virtues in the market; 2. Epistemic ethics: virtues of the mind; 3. Internalizing virtues: the clients; 4. Case study I: primes and subprimes; 5. Incorporating virtue: the banks; 6. Case study II:l#i