Latin American Capital Markets

420 OSVALDO R. AGATIELLOand rules, and individual and organizational behavior Business ethics is being called tofoster a multi-tiered approach that encompasses the roles, responsibilities, and interactionsof persons, organizations, and systems in a highly complex system of multipleactors and overlapping sets of rules.The fact that transactions have become more intricateand speedy, and that businesses interrelate more widely and deeply than everbefore, cannot escape moral analysis and discussion (Enderle 2003). Moreover; in thisprocess, it becomes necessary to separate considerations of individual or group interestfrom respect for the ethical order and its demands. For it is precisely when dutyprevails over interest that morality has a ra/son d'etre and an overarching role in civilizedlife (Gauthier 1986; Hausman !989). 5 This rational decision at the individual, group,and system levels may be the single most important step toward building trust in themarkets in the long run.While social morality is interested in collective behavior (interest), religiousmorality is concerned with the internal dimension of individual behavior (virtue). Rationalmorality does not disavow either; but aims at governing and interpreting altruistic,egoistic, or indifferent behaviors through the lens of rationality (duty). Social moralityis minimally expressed in the legal morality contained in positive law, especially asminutely described in criminal law. Genuinely engaging in practical ethics exercises totry to resolve moral dilemmas is a prolonged, demanding, and costly effort, which seldomsuffices per se to control some behaviors (Etzioni 1996; Kagan 1989).This processincludes recognizing moral issues through increased ethical awareness and sensitivity,sharpening analytical skills, finding ways to sort out specific disagreements, ideally affectingthe decisions and behaviors of participants and their milieus, and eventuallytrusting the judgment of others (Callahan 1997; Carter 1998). This sequence is notcapricious, but rather a methodology refined over the course of centuries, independentof the moral viewpoint (virtue-based, duty-based, rights-based, or interest-based),the perception and interpretation of the facts, and the loyalties involved. In the followinglist, the first three steps are aimed at overcoming the deeply ingrained reaction oftaking refuge in neutrality or pretended tolerance to escape hard decisions:• Recognizing moral issues requires specialized training, particularly when thoseissues—people's welfare, sentiments, characters, relationships, and obligations—go unnoticed.5 With impeccable elegance, Cicero (1913, vol. Ill, p. iv) warns us that "those ... who measure everything by a standardof profits and personal advantage and refuse to have these outweighed by considerations of moral rectitude areaccustomed, in considering any question, to weigh the morally right against what they think the expedient; good menare not."Copyright © by the Inter-American Development Bank. All rights reserved.For more information visit our website: www.iadb.org/pub