Ethics and Moral Agency in Finance and the Financial Sector: Critical Perspectives

One of the most distinctive features of the financial crisis triggered in 2009 has been the idea that the crisis has been precipitated by a moral collapse on the part of those in the banking and finance industries. This moral condemnation fuels the continued political debates over effective financial regulation, the problems of holding global finance to account and the need to distinguish personal, corporate and speculative sectors of finance. It conditions industry responses that point to codes of ethics and professional conduct and to the role of regulation and law in reinforcing good practice. It has been influential in fuelling an approach to avoiding a similar crisis that focuses heavily on regulation and compliance to safeguard against moral lapses and the systemic features of finance that allow such moral lapses.

Whilst there may well be specific individuals whose moral character and actions might be questioned, the focus on morality signifies a contemporary return to appeals to morality to provide answers to questions that have hitherto been the domain of political economy, economics and policy analysts. What is significant about this focus is that it obscures other and equally important questions:

• To what extent is the 'crisis' a systemic feature of the processes, logic and institutional rationale of the financial sector?
• To what extent should we regard Alessio Rastani's celebration of financial crisis as something he 'dreams of' on the BBC as indicative of a particular morality (or amorality) that is ingrained in the financial sector?
• What is the relationship between the practices of the finance industry, its professional codes and claims for a moral agency?
• Is this a more generic 'problem' of the practices of business and finance or is it a singular 'problem' for the financial sector, and if it is, what do other business sectors have to offer in advice or remedy?
• Is this a moral matter or primarily a political and regulatory matter, and what is the relationship between morals and politics?
• What do critical social and philosophical perspectives have to offer in explaining the issues of moral agency and practices within business and finance? How do thinkers like Simmel or Virilio offer new perspectives for thinking about business and finance? What do phenomenological or existential or Marxist and Feminist positions offer this discussion?

This conference is convened to bring together the voices of those who both analyse and engage in the business and finance sectors, and more critical philosophical and political-economic voices and perspectives, to explore the problems and possibilities, and the scope and limitations, to questions of professional ethics and moral agency and practice as a basis for accountable and responsible business and finance in the 21st Century. It invites papers that provide critical diagnoses of the problems and possibilities of the discursive moment of professional ethics and moral agency and practice in the conjuncture of the 2009 crisis (though historical and contemporary ‘post-crisis’ papers are welcome) and the reflexivity it has engendered, and papers that explore ways forward that will retrieve, change or restructure business and finance to better meets the interests of community, society and innovative change. It welcomes arguments that represent the spectrum of opinions, from pleas that business is ethical and the current ‘scapegoating’ is unjustified, to arguments that the crisis was simply an illustration of the bankruptcy - moral and political - of capitalist finance.

Online conference registration and fees payment from Friday January 10, 2014 to Friday 4 April 2014.

The conference fee is 300 be highlighted with proposals, and decisions will be made quickly as to what discount can be offered

The fee includes:

• Registration and administration fees
• Conference Pack
• 3 lunches
• 1 Conference Reception
• 1 Conference Dinner

For any questions or concerns please contact the conference organizers at the email address below.

[email protected]

Organisers:

Martin Mullins, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ie

Paul Reynolds, Edge Hill University, UK