Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis: Why Incompetence is Worse than Greed (Business, Value Creation, and Society)

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.

Boudewijn de Bruin is Professor of Financial Ethics at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He is a consultant with the financial services industry, has taught in various executive MBA programmes across the world, and is a regular contributor to the media. He runs a large project on Trusting Banks, with Alex Oliver (University of Cambridge) and financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), which draws together philosophers, social scientists, policymakers and finance professionals.