The Ethics of Banking: Conclusions from the Financial Crisis (Issues ...

Ethical Duties of the Investor 67
automobiles, which have the same market price everywhere, as with the delivery of
high-tech armaments, the market price of which nobody in his country can possibly
know. This example is not intended to mean that all arms exports involve corruption,
but merely to show that the opportunity for corruption arises more frequently
in connection with goods that are not substitutable for other goods and therefore
have no comparison price.
Another problematic result of this fact is the diversion of demand from corrupt
governments. Given the greater opportunity to conceal bribes within the price of
non-marketable armaments, the demand of government “insiders” for imports will
be distorted and diverted towards those kinds of goods. Since they expect it to be
easier to obtain, and conceal, commissions or even bribes in the context of armaments,
they will disproportionately demand armaments as opposed to other, more
urgently needed goods. This kind of arms/bribes spiral leads, eventually, to an overconsumption
of weapons, and this in turn contributes to a further deterioration in
economic development. 33
Ethical Duties of the Investor and of the Firm Quoted
on the Capital Market
Does the investor have ethical duties in the capital market, beyond the duty of
refraining from insider trading? 34 The now defining concept of maximizing shareholder
value seems to contain no other imperative to guide the investor’s actions
than that of maximizing the value of one’s own shares, and thereby maximizing the
allocative efficiency of the economy. In terms of the ethical economy model, this
restriction of the investor’s criteria to mere wealth maximization is inadequate, and
must be enriched with the ethical criterion of acting in a way that is comprehensively
good and in keeping with the nature of the domain of investment. The investor has
the ethical duty to examine, in doubtful cases, where and for what purpose he is
investing.
Finance ethics must also provide help with deciding how to act in grey zones.
At the same time, by analyzing economic action in the grey zones, insights can be
gleaned which are useful for determining the applicable norms in the clear zones.
The scholar of economic ethics is not a specialist in grey zones, and nor is it the task
of economic ethics to provide the all-too-shrewd entrepreneur or economist with the
necessary know-how in these areas to get away with actions which, in themselves,
verge on the indefensible.
33 On the problem of the dependency of Third World countries resulting from arms deals, cf.
also CHRISTIAN CATRINA: Arms Transfers and Dependence, New York (Taylor & Francis) 1988
(=United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. UNIDIR and Dissertation, University of
Zurich).
34 For the economic ethics of shareholders, cf. also G. CORBETTA: “Shareholders”, in: B. Harvey
(ed.): Business Ethics. A European Approach, Hemel Hempstead (Prentice Hall) 1994, pp. 88–102.