The sanctions imposed on their perpetrators cannot find minimum ethical justification

Aasian currently, it is hardly possible to think about the ethics of business and financial activities without referring back to back advocates of fair trade and sustainable development, on the one hand, and financiers that only the profit motive, on the other hand. The debate of ideas can find its place between the supporters of the "all-ethics" and "nothing-ethics". Imagine a ground without negotiating the doctrines, is that the quadrature of the circle The recent work of Ruwen Ogien, Director of research at CNRS, allow us to hope, putting in form a system of ethical principles, called "minimum ethics." The vehicle several principles and Ruwen Ogien retains three: the equal consideration of interests, the neutrality of the substantive conceptions of the good and the limited intervention in cases of egregious wrongs to others.

These three principles are derived from different legal theories that he confronts to find a compromise. Thus it is a mixture of ethics Aristotelian of the virtues, which seeks to distinguish the good things in the wrong, of deontological ethics of Kant, rooted in the action, and a consequentialist ethics, which focuses on the results of the action. Yet mistrust, minimum ethics is not the miracle cure to the divergence of different legal concepts of "fair trade", but rather the implementation of a concept of moral order voluntarily restricted.

The problems raised by the application of these principles to a minimum ethical financial activities are numerous, and this first because this sphere of skills and activities is often considered from a technical point of view. The phenomenon of increased financial activities and the expansion of their social impact are linked to the globalization of economic activities and an incredible number of positions are possible finance and its operators, the role they should play and the methods they should use. Difficult to sort!

We can now, from those principles, form a "dispassionate" reading grid on which a judgement on the financial activities. The principle of neutrality with respect to the substantive conceptions of the good is at the outset on the "ethical" investment fund, that have the goal of a "clean" performance In the same way, the principle of intervention for egregious harm to others refers to the various committees of regulators, as well as the designs of their regulation. Finally, the principle of equal consideration of interests is the question of access to the markets at all in the same way, of their degree of transparency, or the availability of financial information.

Faced with these principles, ethical funds are not truly ethical because they convey a particular conception of the good - investment promoted by the Quakers and Methodists. Furthermore, insider, if one ignores the opportunity cost they generate for the participants in the market, do not contravene the principle of limited intervention. The sanctions imposed on their perpetrators cannot find minimum ethical justification. As they act in their interest as well as in the interest of a more efficient market focusing their transactions according to the information available, it illustrates the third principle of equal consideration of interests. Must accept the fact that it is not possible to find a reason not qualified morally condemn a profit without harm to anyone and no conflict of interest. In a century that sees the return of morality, it is certainly the principle of neutrality with the conceptions of the good to be the most difficult to convince its relevance.

Finally, this minimum ethics has the merit of look nine on the life of the markets and beautiful opportunities to defuse the prevailing moral positions, combining in a subtle manner "informed and casual" progressive liberalism and tolerance of good-natured.