Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T20:09:54.048Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Can Finance Be a Virtuous Practice? A MacIntyrean Account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2020

Marta Rocchi
Affiliation:
Dublin City University
Ignacio Ferrero
Affiliation:
Universidad de Navarra
Ron Beadle
Affiliation:
Northumbria University

Abstract

Finance may suffer from institutional deformations that subordinate its distinctive goods to the pursuit of external goods, but this should encourage attempts to reform the institutionalization of finance rather than to reject its potential for virtuous business activity. This article argues that finance should be regarded as a domain-relative practice (Beabout 2012; MacIntyre 2007). Alongside management, its moral status thereby varies with the purposes it serves. Hence, when practitioners working in finance facilitate projects that create common goods, it allows them to develop virtues. This argument applies MacIntyre’s widely acknowledged account of the relationship between practices and the development of virtues while questioning some of his claims about finance. It also takes issue with extant accounts of particular financial functions that have failed to identify the distinctive goods of financial practice.

Type
Article
Copyright
©2020 Business Ethics Quarterly

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abbà, Giuseppe. 1996. Quale impostazione per la filosofia morale? Ricerche di filosofia morale. Rome: LAS, Libreria Ateneo Salesiano.Google Scholar
Angel, James J., and McCabe, Douglas M.. 2013. “Fairness in Financial Markets: The Case of High Frequency Trading.” Journal of Business Ethics 112 (4): 585–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Annas, Julia. 1995. The Morality of Happiness. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, . 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Vol. 2. Edited by Barnes, Jonathan, 6th ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Arjunwadkar, Parag Y. 2018. FinTech: The Technology Driving Disruption in the Financial Services Industry. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Australian Banking Association. 2020. “Banking Code of Practice.” https://www.ausbanking.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Code-2020-Release-Final-web.pdf.Google Scholar
Aziz, Saqib, and Dowling, Michael. 2019. “Machine Learning and AI for Risk Management.” In Disrupting Finance. FinTech and Strategy in the 21st Century, edited by Lynn, Theo, Mooney, John G., Rosati, Pierangelo, and Cummins, Mark, 3350. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banking and Finance Oath. 2016. “Ethics in Practice for Banking and Finance.” https://www.thebfo.org/BFO/media/contents/Images/The-Banking-and-Finance-Oath-Brochure_Updated-July-2018.pdf.Google Scholar
Banks, Mark. 2012. “MacIntyre, Bourdieu and the Practice of Jazz.” Popular Music 31 (1): 6986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beabout, Gregory R. 2012. “Management as a Domain-Relative Practice that Requires and Develops Practical Wisdom.” Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2): 405–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, Ron. 2002. “The Misappropriation of MacIntyre.” Philosophy of Management 2 (2): 4554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, Ron. 2013. “Managerial Work in a Practice-Embodying Institution: The Role of Calling, The Virtue of Constancy.” Journal of Business Ethics 113 (4): 679–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, Ron. 2017a. “MacIntyre’s Influence on Business Ethics.” In Handbook of Virtue Ethics in Business and Management, edited by Sison, Alejo José G., Beabout, Gregory R., and Ferrero, Ignacio, 1: 5967. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, Ron. 2017b. Review of Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning and Narrative by Alasdair MacIntyre. Journal of Business Ethics 144 (1): 219–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, Ron, and Knight, Kelvin. 2012. “Virtue and Meaningful Work.” Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2): 433–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, Ron, and Könyöt, David. 2006. “The Man in the Red Coat—Management in the Circus.” Culture and Organization 12 (2): 127–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, Ron, and Moore, Geoff. 2006. “MacIntyre on Virtue and Organization.” Organization Studies 27 (3): 323–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bielskis, Andrius, and Knight, Kelvin, eds. 2015. Virtue and Economy: Essays on Morality and Markets. Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Blakely, Jason W. 2017. “Does Liberalism Lack Virtue? A Critique of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Reactionary Politics.” Interpretation 44 (1): 121.Google Scholar
Boatright, John R. 2013. “Swearing to Be Virtuous: The Prospects of a Banker’s Oath.” Review of Social Economy 71 (2): 140–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boatright, John Raymond, ed. 2010. Finance Ethics. Critical Issues in Theory and Practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boatright, John Raymond. 2014. Ethics in Finance. 3rd ed. Somerset, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, Blackwell Pub.Google Scholar
Breen, Keith. 2007. “Work and Emancipatory Practice: Towards a Recovery of Human Beings’ Productive Capacities.” Res Publica 13 (4): 381414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, Kathryn B. 1997. “Management as a Practice: A Response to Alasdair MacIntyre.” Journal of Business Ethics 16 (8): 825–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casu, Barbara, and Gall, Andrew. 2016. Building Societies in the Financial Services Industry. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cato, Molly Scott, Myers, Jan, and Howlett, Steven. 2013. “At the Sharp End of the Credit Crisis: A Profile of Valleys Credit Union.” Local Economy 28 (6): 539–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CFA Institute. 2014. “Standards of Practice Handbook.” CFA Institute. http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/ccb.v2014.n4.1.Google Scholar
CFA Institute. 2017b. “Ethical and Professional Standards. Study Session 1.” https://www.cfainstitute.org/-/media/documents/study-session/2018-l1-readings.ashx.Google Scholar
Cornwell, John. 2010. “MacIntyre on Money.” Prospect Magazine, October 20, 2010. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/alasdair-macintyre-on-money.Google Scholar
Croft, Jane. 2018. “Chatbots Join the Legal Conversation.” Financial Times, June 7, 2018. https://www.ft.com/content/0eabcf44-4c83-11e8-97e4-13afc22d86d4.Google Scholar
Davis, Stephen M., Lukomnik, Jon, and Pitt-Watson, David. 2016. What They Do with Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us and How to Fix It. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
De Bruin, Boudewijn. 2015. Ethics and The Global Financial Crisis: Why Incompetence Is Worse Than Greed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunne, Joseph. 2003. “Arguing for Teaching as a Practice: A Reply to Alasdair MacIntyre.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 37 (2): 353–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Gerald. 2019. “Financialization, Rentier Interests and Central Bank Policy.” In The Political Economy of Central Banking: Contested Control and the Power of Finance, Selected Essays of Gerald Epstein, 380406. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Charles. 2010. Inside Job. Sony Pictures Classics.Google Scholar
Ferrero, Ignacio, and Sison, Alejo José G.. 2014. “A Quantitative Analysis of Authors, Schools and Themes in Virtue Ethics Articles in Business Ethics and Management Journals (1980-2011).” Business Ethics: A European Review 23 (4): 375400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrero, Ignacio, and Sison, Alejo José G.. 2017. “Aristotle and MacIntyre on the Virtues in Finance.” In Handbook of Virtue Ethics in Business and Management, edited by Sison, Alejo José G., Beabout, Gregory R., and Ferrero, Ignacio, 2:1153–61. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwood, Robin, and Scharfstein, David S.. 2012. “How to Make Finance Work.” Harvard Business Review 90 (3): 104–10.Google Scholar
Greenwood, Royston, Diaz, Amalia Magán, Li, Stan Xiao, and Lorente, José Céspedes. 2010. “The Multiplicity of Institutional Logics and the Heterogeneity of Organizational Responses.” Organization Science 21: 521–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Daniel E. 2011. “The Guild of Surgeons as a Tradition of Moral Enquiry.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 36 (2): 114–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawser, Anita. 2018. “The Bank of the Future.” Global Finance, June 2018.Google Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. von. 1988. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek. Edited by Bartley, William Warren and Kresge, Stephen. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iansiti, Marco, and Lakhani, Karim R.. 2017. “The Truth About Blockchain.” Harvard Business Review, 95 (1): 118–27.Google Scholar
JPMorgan Chase & Co. 2019. “Code of Conduct.” JPMorgan Chase & Co. https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/document/code-of-conduct.pdf.Google Scholar
Keat, Russell. 2008. “Ethics, Markets and MacIntyre.” Analyse & Kritik 30 (1): 243–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Kelvin. 2008. “Goods.” Philosophy of Management 7 (1): 107–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, David, and McCabe, Darren. 2015. “‘Masters of the Universe’: Demystifying Leadership in the Context of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.” British Journal of Management 26 (2): 197210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koslowski, Peter. 2011. The Ethics of Banking: Conclusions from the Financial Crisis. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krippner, Greta R. 2005. “The Financialization of the American Economy.” Socio-Economic Review 3 (2): 173208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krippner, Greta R. 2012. Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krogh, George von, Haefliger, Stefan, Spaeth, Sebastian, and Wallin, Martin W.. 2012. “Carrots and Rainbows: Motivation and Social Practice in Open Source Software Development.” MIS Quarterly 36 (2): 649–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, Theo, Mooney, John G., Rosati, Pierangelo, and Cummins, Mark, eds. 2019. Disrupting Finance: FinTech and Strategy in the 21st Century. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1973. “Ideology, Social Science, and Revolution.” Comparative Politics 5 (3): 321–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1977. “Why Are the Problems of Business Ethics Insoluble?” In Proceedings of the First National Conference on Business Ethics, edited by Hoffman, W. Michael, 99107. Waltham, MA: Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1978. “What Has Ethics to Learn from Medical Ethics?Philosophical Exchange 2 (4): 3747.Google ScholarPubMed
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1979. “Corporate Modernity and Moral Judgement: Are They Mutually Exclusive?” In Ethics and Problems of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Goodpaster, K.E. and Saye, K.M.. Notre Dame, IN: University Press of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1988. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1990. Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition . London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1994a. “A Partial Response to My Critics.” In After MacIntyre: Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair MacIntyre, edited by Horton, John and Mendus, Susan, 283304. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1994b. “Kinesis Interview with Professor Alasdair MacIntyre, Interviewed by Pearson T.” Kinesis 20 (2): 3447.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1998. “Politics, Philosophy and the Common Good.” In The MacIntyre Reader, edited by Knight, Kelvin, 235–52. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 2000. “The Recovery of Moral Agency.” In The Best Christian Writing 2000 , edited by J. Wilson, 111–36. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 2006. “Social Structures and Their Threats to Moral Agency.” In Selected Essays , Volume 2, 186204. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 2007. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 2009. “The Very Idea of a University: Aristotle, Newman, and Us.” British Journal of Educational Studies 57 (4): 347–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 2015. “The Irrelevance of Ethics.” In Virtue and Economy, edited by Bielskis, Andrius and Knight, Kelvin, 721. Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 2016. Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C, and Dunne, Joseph. 2002. “Alasdair MacIntyre on Education: In Dialogue with Joseph Dunne.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 36 (1): 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mancher, Marc, Huff, Chris, Grabowski, Robert, and Thomas, Jamie. 2018. “Digital Finance: The Robots Are Here.” The Journal of Government Financial Management 67 (1): 3441.Google Scholar
Mathews, Race. 1999. Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Merkley, Jeff, and Levin, Carl. 2011. “The Dodd-Frank Act Restrictions on Proprietary Trading and Conflicts of Interest: New Tools to Address Evolving Threats.” Harvard Journal on Legislation 48 (2): 515–53.Google Scholar
Mittelstadt, Brent Daniel, Allo, Patrick, Taddeo, Mariarosaria, Wachter, Sandra, and Floridi, Luciano. 2016. “The Ethics of Algorithms: Mapping the Debate.” Big Data & Society 3 (2): 1-21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monaco, Eleonora. 2019. “What FinTech Can Learn from High-Frequency Trading: Economic Consequences, Open Issues and Future of Corporate Disclosure.” In Disrupting Finance. FinTech and Strategy in the 21st Century, edited by Lynn, Theo, Mooney, John G., Rosati, Pierangelo, and Cummins, Mark, 5170. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Geoff. 2012. “The Virtue of Governance, the Governance of Virtue.” Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (2): 293318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Geoff. 2017. Virtue at Work: Ethics for Individuals, Managers and Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mueller, Dennis C., ed. 2012. The Oxford Handbook of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neal, Larry. 2015. A Concise History of International Finance: From Babylon to Bernanke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Jeffery. 2012. Reason, Tradition, and the Good: MacIntyre’s Tradition-Constituted Reason and Frankfurt School Critical Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Paech, Philipp. 2017. “The Governance of Blockchain Financial Networks.” The Modern Law Review 80 (6): 1073–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palley, Thomas I. 2007. “Financialization: What It Is and Why It Matters.” The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, working paper no. 525.Google Scholar
Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, United Kingdom. 2013. “Changing Banking for Good.” London: The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Pianigiani, Ottorino. 1907. Vocabolario etimologico della lingua italiana. Rome: Società Editrice Dante Alighieri di Albrighi, Segati & C.Google Scholar
Pitt, Mark M., Khandker, Shahidur R., and Cartwright, Jennifer. 2006. “Empowering Women with Micro-Finance: Evidence from Bangladesh.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 54 (4): 791831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitt-Watson, David. 2016. “Has the Finance Industry Lost Its Purpose?” May 26, 2016. https://www.london.edu/faculty-and-research/lbsr/has-the-finance-industry-lost-its-purpose.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Principles for Responsible Investment. 2017. “What Are the Principles for Responsible Investment?” https://www.unpri.org/signatories/what-are-the-principles-for-responsible-investment.Google Scholar
Rajan, Raghuram, and Zingales, Luigi. 2003. Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity. New York: Crown Business.Google Scholar
Robson, Angus. 2014. “Leader Narratives in Scottish Banking: An Aristotelian Approach.” PhD Thesis, University of Northumbria.Google Scholar
Robson, Angus. 2015. “Constancy and Integrity: (Un)Measurable Virtues?Business Ethics: A European Review 24 (S2): S115–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocchi, Marta. 2019a. MacIntyre e l’etica della finanza. Una proposta basata su beni, norme e virtù. MCEBooks 10. Rome: EDUSC.Google Scholar
Rocchi, Marta. 2019b. “Technomoral Financial Agents: Ethics in the Fintech Era.” Finance & Bien Commun/Common Good (46 and 47): 2542.Google Scholar
Rocchi, Marta, and Thunder, David. 2019. “Can a Good Person Be a Good Trader? An Ethical Defense of Financial Trading.” Journal of Business Ethics 159 (1): 89103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roncella, Andrea, and Ferrero, Ignacio. 2018. “A MacIntyrean Perspective on the Collapse of a Money Market Fund.” Journal of Business Ethics. doi: 10.1007/s10551-018-4078-9.Google Scholar
Rossi, Salvatore. 2013. Processo alla finanza. Rome: Laterza.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A., and Nordhaus, William D.. 2010. Economics. 19 th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Santoro, Michael A., and Strauss, Ronald J.. 2012. Wall Street Values: Business Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayers, Sean. 2011. “MacIntyre and Modernity.” In Virtue and Politics: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Revolutionary Aristotelianism, edited by Blackledge, Paul and Knight, Kelvin, 7996. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Sellman, Derek. 2000. “Alasdair Maclntyre and the Professional Practice of Nursing.” Nursing Philosophy 1 (1): 2633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serrano del Pozo, Ignacio, and Kreber, Carolin. 2015. “Professionalization of the University and the Profession as Macintyrean Practice.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 34 (6): 551–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiller, Robert J. 2012. Finance and the Good Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sinnicks, Matthew. 2019. “Moral Education at Work: On the Scope of MacIntyre’s Concept of a Practice.” Journal of Business Ethics 159 (1): 105–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sison, Alejo José G., and Ferrero, Ignacio. 2019. “Is Financialisation a Vice? Perspectives from Virtue Ethics and Catholic Social Teaching.” In Business Ethics After the Global Financial Crisis: Lessons from the Crash, edited by Cowton, C., Dempsey, J., and Sorell, T., 621. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sison, Alejo José G., Ferrero, Ignacio, and Guitián, Gregorio. 2019. “Characterizing Virtues in Finance.” Journal of Business Ethics 155 (4): 9951007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sison, Alejo José G., Ferrero, Ignacio, Guitián, Gregorio, Rocchi, Marta, and Roncella, Andrea. 2018. “Virtues and the Common Good in Finance.” In Business Ethics: A Virtue Ethics and Common Good Approach, edited by Sison, Alejo José G., Ferrero, Ignacio, and Guitián, Gregorio, 5181. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiglitz, Joseph E. 1989. “Financial Markets and Development.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 5 (4): 5568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stockhammer, Engelbert. 2004. “Financialization and the Slowdown of Accumulation.” Journal of Economics 28 (5): 719–41.Google Scholar
Tsoukas, Haridimos. 2018. “Strategy and Virtue: Developing Strategy-As-Practice Through Virtue Ethics.” Strategic Organization 16 (3): 323–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ven, Bert W. van de. 2011. “Banking after the Crisis: Towards an Understanding of Banking as a Professional Practice.” Ethical Perspectives 4: 541–68.Google Scholar
Volcker, Paul. 2010. “How to Reform Our Financial System.” The New York Times, January 30, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/opinion/31volcker.html?pagewanted=all.Google Scholar
West, Andrew. 2018. “After Virtue and Accounting Ethics.” Journal of Business Ethics 148 (1): 2136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wildman, Adam, ed. 2014. Virtuous Banking: Placing Ethos and Purpose at the Heart of Banking. London: Res Publica.Google Scholar
Wyma, Keith D. 2015. “The Case for Investment Advising as a Virtue-Based Practice.” Journal of Business Ethics 127 (1): 231–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zingales, Luigi. 2015. “Does Finance Benefit Society?” NBER Working Paper Series, no. 20894.Google Scholar