The Global Financial Crisis is now widely acknowledged to be the most severe
economic downturn since the 1930s. It is unique not only in its gravity and scope, but
also in its underlying causes and wider social, political, and economic implications. It
continues to generate heated debate amongst economists, historians, pundits, political
scientists and the general public. But is has been by and large neglected by philosophers
and professional ethicists. Global Financial Crisis: the Ethical Issues begins to
remedy this neglect.
• the decisions and actions that ultimately caused the crisis
• the institutional and regulatory shortcomings that allowed it to happen
• its consequences for both developed and developing countries
• and the responses that it has elicited raise myriad moral and philosophical questions,
a sample of which are explored in this volume.
NED DOBOS Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and
Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University and the University of Melbourne, Australia. His
research interests include morality and political violence, the ethics of war, and
business ethics. He is the author of Insurrection and Intervention (forthcoming).
CHRISTIAN BARRY Deputy Director of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and
Public Ethics and Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Australian National University. He
has served as a consultant and contributing author to three UN Development Programme's
Human Development Reports, was editor of Ethics & International Affairs, and directed
the Carnegie Council's Justice and the World Economy program. His research focuses on
closing the gap between theory and practice in international justice.
THOMAS POGGE Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale
and Professorial Fellow at the Australian National University Centre for Applied
Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE). He has published widely on Kant and in moral and
practical philosophy.
Table of Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction; N.Dobos
Global Financial Institutions, Ethics and Market Fundamentalism; S.Miller
The Legitimacy of the Financial System and State Capitalism; N.Chomsky
Neoliberalism—Is This the End?; N.Dobos
Ethical Investing in an Age of Excessive Materialistic Self-Interest;
J.C.Harrington
The Achilles Heel of Competitive/Adversarial; T.Pogge
Financial Services Providers: Integrity Systems, Reputation, and the Triangle
of Virtue; S.Miller
Who Must Pay for the Damage of the Global Financial Crisis; M.Peterson
& C.Barry
Index
208 pages, Paperback
