• Inicio
  • Quiénes somos
    • ¿Qué es Eben?
    • Congresos Anuales
    • Miembros
    • Junta Directiva
    • ¿Cómo hacerse socio?
  • Opinión
    • En pocas palabras
    • Nuestros socios opinan
  • Noticias
  • Eventos
    • Eventos Eben
    • Otros Eventos
  • Recursos
    • Material docente
    • Publicaciones científicas
    • Hemeroteca
  • Sitios de interés
    • Webs de ética empresarial
    • Blogs
    • Twitter
  • Contacto

EBEN

  • Inicio
  • Quiénes somos
    • ¿Qué es Eben?
    • Congresos Anuales
    • Miembros
    • Junta Directiva
    • ¿Cómo hacerse socio?
  • Opinión
    • En pocas palabras
    • Nuestros socios opinan
  • Noticias
  • Eventos
    • Eventos Eben
    • Otros Eventos
  • Recursos
    • Material docente
    • Publicaciones científicas
    • Hemeroteca
  • Sitios de interés
    • Webs de ética empresarial
    • Blogs
    • Twitter
  • Contacto
Noticias de Ética EmpresarialRecursos

Editor’s Choice: If War Can Have Ethics, Wall Street Can, Too

by admin 11 de diciembre de 201611 de diciembre de 2016
11 de diciembre de 201611 de diciembre de 2016

3 de octubre de 2016 – Nearly a decade after one of the most devastating financial collapses in modern history, Wall Street appears as corrupt as ever. Evidence is not hard to come by — most recently, the Wells Fargo scandal, in which employees of the company, spurred by perverse incentive structures, opened two million fraudulent accounts in their customers’ names. The bank had put intense pressure on employees to meet sales goals; some employees who reported the wrongdoing were fired, along with 5,300 more, after the scandal broke. All this is but one reminder of how far major actors in the economy have strayed from any reasonable standard of moral behavior.

Despite the recent urging of high-profile figures like Pope Francis and Senator Bernie Sanders to establish a “moral economy,” we have not. Free-market advocates hold fast to justifications that amount to variations on the “invisible hand” theory of Adam Smith — that the economy is not a moral space, but one that relies on a free and fair market, self-interested (as opposed to selfish) actors and amoral (as opposed to immoral) calculation to arrive at the most efficient and innovative outcomes. The invisible hand of the market must be allowed to act; placing moral limits on the economy, they argue, would hinder this flourishing.

To some, the unbridled force and overarching goal to be pursued is the efficiency of the market, even to the detriment of society, transforming market theory into a sort of divine scripture, to be faithfully followed. The suggestion of a moral economy is decried for the inefficiencies that moral limits would place on behavior in the market. It is as if society exists to serve the market, not the other way around.

The pursuit of a comparative advantage in the market has come to justify nearly any behavior and its consequences. The result of this approach in the United States is already well-known — a staggering level of economic inequality and widespread, devastating effects on millions of citizens struggling against this tide.

Hedge funds and investment banks utilize high-speed trading to place the individual investor at an insurmountable disadvantage. Multinational corporations pump money into political campaigns to influence tax policies that allow them to skirt paying taxes. The mega-wealthy deploy a small army of accountants and attorneys to hide their assets. Slavish devotion to market theories serves as a convenient rational justification for some to take selfish actions they know to be wrong or questionable.

In short, the amoral economy envisioned by free market theory is a fantasy, a theoretical construct that has never really existed in practice. It has been overwhelmed by immoral actors who have turned it into an immoral space, tipping the playing field to their advantage.

So what is to be done? Can the economy be transformed from an immoral space into a moral space?

Some progress on this question can be made by examining how we have chosen to navigate an even more perilous manifestation of the human condition: war. The economy, like war, creates winners and losers, makes heroes of those who seize opportunities and victims of those caught between forces beyond their control, and can transform the fortunes of society for better or ill. Yet, unlike war, the economy has no foundational morality. Instead it leaves critical moral judgments with real consequences in the tenuous hands of self-interested economic actors whose guiding light is the maximization of their own benefit, without consideration for the effects on others.

The Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz warned of “total war” as a theoretical construct in which, by rationally following the escalations of war to their conclusion, war outstrips its strategic logic and becomes irrational, therefore requiring limits in practice. Without limits, Clausewitz argued, theory could be misused to justify and rationalize the unjust and irrational. Unless war is bounded by a higher societal purpose and tempered by what Clausewitz referred to as “the spirit of the age,” it threatens to become its own raison d’être, an irrational end in itself.

In war, immoral action may provide the combatant with a comparative advantage, but it also stains society and humanity in ways that we have collectively deemed to be unacceptable.

Humanity has tried to limit war on moral terms since Cicero first outlined the Just War Ethic, an effort that continues to this day. In war, the reversion to barbarism can be tempting in the heat of battle, and as passions and hatreds rise between peoples. However, even here, humanity has managed to place moral limits.

In the modern world, the Just War Ethic may seem like a distant abstraction; but its effects influence the relationship between war and society in profound ways. Michael Walzer, perhaps the most influential living philosopher of just war theories, articulated the importance of seeking to establish moral principles there: “War is the hardest place: if comprehensive and consistent moral judgments are possible there, they are possible everywhere.”

The Just War Ethic provides the foundational principles on which the laws of war have been constructed; when policy makers seek to justify the use of force, they employ the language of the Just War Ethic; they speak in terms of the principles of just cause, last resort, necessity, proportionality and the reasonable prospects of success. Although often overshadowed by the horrors of war, the principles of the Just War Ethic do limit war’s worst excesses by underpinning the discourse, decisions, behaviors and accountability related to war.

Of course, the Just War Ethic suffers from a problem: The normative ideal in this case is the absence of war, yet the reality of war precludes that ideal. Therefore, any applied ethics of war are by definition morally flawed. The question for the ethicist then is this: Is it more ethical to make continued (and often ignored) normative pronouncements against the existence of war, or to engage with the temporal reality of war with ethics that seek to limit the cases in which war is undertaken, to moderate its effects, and to guide it toward the normative goal, with the understanding that this goal is not immediately or fully achievable? Obviously, advocates of the Just War Ethic, myself included, come to the latter conclusion.

The question is not one of moral perfection, but of moral improvement. It is a step in the right direction.

If we can seek to regulate war in terms of morality, there is no reason such morality cannot be equally applied to the economy, as Walzer indicates. When faced with illegal or immoral orders, it is the duty of professional soldiers to refuse such orders. When such a refusal occurs, it is followed by thorough investigations, and potentially courts-martial or war crimes prosecutions for those who issue such orders. In the case of the former Wells Fargo employees, the opposite occurred. Imagine the moral and societal hazard if the military permitted such retaliation against those who reported illegal and immoral behaviors.

The principles of a moral economy would seek to curb the market’s more harmful excesses while preserving its societal benefit. Developing fair and just principles to guide a more moral understanding of capitalism may provide a pathway to a more equitable distribution of income and wealth, one that creates more perfect outcomes for society at large.

While the immoral economy has provided advantages to some, it has also stained society and humanity in ways that we are beginning to collectively deem to be unacceptable. The task then is to develop and implement principles of a moral economy which serves the greater good of society.

In a “just” economy, venture capitalists would consider the collateral damage (layoffs, defaulted retirements, etc.) that may result from their actions in the same way that military commanders must consider whether the use of a certain weapon in proximity to civilians would be discriminate and proportional. Chief executives would begin to care for their employees and their families the same way that professional military commanders care for their troops and their families. The promise of these outcomes, and society’s growing dissatisfaction with the current reality, makes this a conversation worth having.

Some might argue that we already have laws and regulations to perform these functions, but these have, at times spectacularly, failed to maintain the market as a truly neutral, free, and fair space. In a theoretical sense, law should approximate the normative ideal in the real world. Yet, in economic thought we have no normative ideal, no foundational morality. We have economic ideals derived from market theory, but these are not tempered by a coherent set of ethical ideals, allowing the market’s worst excesses, and resulting in many of the morally troubling outcomes produced by the economy. We need better laws and regulations, but first we must establish a foundational morality to guide their development.

To demand moral perfection or to succumb in the face of seeming futility is to turn our backs on what can be achieved by acknowledging both the ideal and the limits of reality. Applied ethics guide our interactions in the world as it exists while nudging us incrementally closer to the normative ideal and the world we seek to create.

War is inherently unjust, but the Just War Ethic has made it more just. The economy is not moral, but a foundational ethics of the economy could make it more moral. The product of such ethics would be decidedly imperfect, but it would be better than no ethics at all.

Publicado en NY Times

cambioempresasODStransportes
0 comentarios
0
FacebookTwitterLinkedinWhatsapp

Dejar un comentario Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Al utilizar este formulario, usted acepta el almacenamiento y el manejo de sus datos en este sitio web.

Twitter

EbenspainFollow

Avatar
Retweet on TwitterEbenspain Retweeted
AvatarCIDAF-UCM@cidaf_ucm·
21 Feb

XXX CONGRESO EBEN – Ética y Sostenibilidad: un binomio necesario en el logro de los ODS (8-9 junio 2023. Cádiz) @Ebenspain @IsabelRMora https://cidafucm.es/spip.php?article45372

Reply on Twitter 1628079632040833037Retweet on Twitter 16280796320408330371Like on Twitter 16280796320408330371Twitter 1628079632040833037
Retweet on TwitterEbenspain Retweeted
AvatarGEAccounting@GEAccounting·
23 Feb

#monetizarvalorsocial #socialaccounting #stakeholder @uclm_es #RSE #sostenibilidad @upvehu #JLRetolaza @GEAccounting @LeireSanJose Un placer!

Reply on Twitter 1628605616708022273Retweet on Twitter 16286056167080222734Like on Twitter 16286056167080222737Twitter 1628605616708022273
AvatarEbenspain@Ebenspain·
21 Feb

Calle for Papers open: Cádiz #ethic #stakeholder #virtue #Marketing #EticsinFinance #csr #RSE #sostenibilidad #tesis #premios https://www.eben-spain.org/call-for-papers-xxx-congreso-eben-espana/
Envía ahora tu ponencia o proyecto. ¡Puede ser premiado!

Reply on Twitter 1627896573827989509Retweet on Twitter 16278965738279895093Like on Twitter 16278965738279895093Twitter 1627896573827989509

Categorías

  • Destacado (18)
  • En pocas palabras (56)
  • Eventos (114)
  • Eventos Eben (52)
  • Material docente (76)
  • Noticias de Ética Empresarial (278)
  • Nuestros socios opinan (188)
  • Opinión (220)
  • Otros Eventos (84)
  • Recursos (294)

RSS Agustin Domingo

  • Tres lecciones de Ramón Tamames
  • De Bergoglio a Francisco
  • Presentación Homo Curans, U.P. Comillas, 8 febrero 2023

RSS Antonio Argandoña

  • La sociedad civil (I)
  • Para ejercitar la paciencia
  • Para qué sirven las virtudes

RSS Begoña Sánchez Ramos

  • BEGOÑA SÁNCHEZ-RAMOS, PRESIDENTA DE ACROSS INTERNACIONAL, MEDALLA DE ORO AL MÉRITO EN EL TRABAJO Y POR SU COMPROMISO CON LA GESTIÓN DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN LA EMPRESA
  • “Empresa con enfoque de Derechos Humanos (DDHH). ¿Cómo lograrlo? Un camino a recorrer por las empresas españolas”
  • Articulo de Begoña Sánchez Ramos publicado en InCOMPLIANCE Revista corporativa de International Compliance Association (ICA) asks how companies can achieve a corporate focus on human rights

RSS Joan Fontrodona

  • Tiempo de prioridades
  • Conservar el planeta, pero… ¿para quién?
  • Etica e Inteligencia Artificial

RSS Edita Olaizola

  • Un coach abejorro
  • Antropocentrismo y ética
  • ¡Viva la atención al cliente!

Eventos EBEN

  • CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE 15TH RAMON LLULL JOURNAL OF APPLIED ETHICS

    20 de marzo de 2023
  • “Call for papers”. XXX Congreso EBEN-España

    27 de enero de 2023
  • “Call for papers” XXIX Congreso presencial EBEN España 2022

    22 de febrero de 2022

Otros eventos

  • Call for papers for the 21th IESE International Symposium on Ethics, Business and Society

    18 de noviembre de 2020
  • Call for papers for the 27th International Vincentian Business Ethics Conference

    2 de abril de 2020
  • Society for Business Ethics – Annual Conference 2020

    14 de diciembre de 2019

Opinión

  • En pocas palabras: La ética es rentable…y en tiempos de pandemia más

    22 de abril de 2021
  • Firma invitada: Sandra Mª Sánchez

    22 de abril de 2021
  • Reconectar lo social en la ética de la empresa

    22 de abril de 2021

Noticias

  • Why Working From Home Might Promote More Ethical

    22 de abril de 2021
  • El sector hotelero apuesta por la economía circular para superar la crisis de la covid-19

    22 de abril de 2021
  • Adela Cortina: “la empresa del futuro será ética, social, verde o no será”

    22 de abril de 2021

Contacta

Twitter Linkedin

Eben Spain

  • ¿Qué es Eben?
  • Congresos Anuales
  • Los miembros de EBEN
  • La Junta Directiva de EBEN
  • ¿Cómo hacerse socio?
  • Newsletter
  • Contacto
  • Aviso Legal

Contenidos

  • En pocas palabras
  • Nuestros socios opinan
  • Noticias de Ética Empresarial
  • Eventos Eben
  • Otros Eventos
  • Material docente
  • Publicaciones científicas
  • Sitios de interés

Hermanos Aguirre, 2
48014 Bilbao


info@eben-spain.org

@2019 - EBEN Spain - Designed by Prestigia