A banker’s code of ethics
从亚里士多德、休谟、罗尔斯和现代心理学出发，提出基于道德直觉的银行伦理准则，涵盖承诺、博弈、说服和监护四种社会实践，并详细阐述其规范及同情心的调节作用。
Persistent public demands for bankers to behave ethically have not been matched by a similar focus on defining the content of the desired behaviour. This paper attempts to remedy that failing. Drawing from Aristotle, Hume, Rawls, and recent psychological research, it argues that an ethics code grounded in our moral intuitions, suitably refined and tested by reason, is essential for a code to be workable and widely accepted. The intuitions most relevant to banking are those arising from common social practices—namely, mutual promising, game-playing, persuasion, and guardianship. The norms behind mutual promising underpin the entire industry, while those of the other practices inform ethics in trading, sales, and asset management, respectively. The paper then spells out in detail some of those norms; examines the roles that ‘playing by the rules’, helping competitors, sincerity, bias, disclosure, competence, conflicts of interest, and other factors play in their specification; and discusses the circumstances in which the operation of these social-practice-based ethical norms are tempered by compassion.