The Philosophy of Money and Finance

Cover
The Philosophy of Money and Finance
Copyright
Contents
List of Contributors
Introduction
	About This Volume
	Part I: Metaphysics
	Part II: Epistemology
	Part III: Ethics
	Part IV: Political Philosophy
	Acknowledgments
	List of Peer Reviewers
Part I: Metaphysics
	1: The Social Ontology of Money
		1. Money and Its Functions
		2. Status Function and Deontic Powers
		3. Institutions and Their Function
		4. The Ontological Standing of Money
			4.1 Monism
			4.2 Dualism
			4.3 Abstract–Concrete versus Object–Property Dualism
		5. Conclusion
		Acknowledgments
		References
	2: Cryptocurrency: Commodity or Credit?
		1. Introduction
		2. Cryptocurrency
		3. The Commodity Theory
		4. Cryptocurrency as Commodity
		5. The Credit Theory
		6. Cryptocurrency as Credit
		7. A Hybrid Account
		8. Conclusion
		Acknowledgments
		References
	3: How Many People Does It Take to Make a Dollar?
		1. Introduction
		2. Attitude Accounts of Money
		3. Function Accounts of Money
		4. Bitcoin and Bad Money
		Acknowledgments
		References
	4: Truth in Financial Accounting
		1. Introduction
		2. On Truth
		3. On Accounting
			3.1 Double Entry Bookkeeping
			3.2 Accruals Accounting, Costs, and Profit
			3.3 The Centrality of Judgment
		4. Accounting and Truth
		5. Concluding Remarks
		References
Part II: Epistemology
	5: Are Financial Markets Epistemically Efficient?
		1. Introduction
		2. Different Views of Financial Markets
		3. What, If Anything, Makes Financial Markets Epistemically Efficient?
			3.1 The minimization of herding
			3.2 The reduction of blind reliance on metrics
			3.3 The minimization of conflicts of interests
		4. Reflecting Information that Matters
		5. Conclusion
		References
	6: Financial Economics: What Kind of Science Is It?
		1. The Emergence of Financial Economics: From ‘Old’ to ‘New’ Finance Research
		2. Financial Economics as a Model-Based and Performative Science
		3. Ethical Values in Financial Economics
		4. Conclusions
		Acknowledgements
		References
	7: JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” Trading Losses: A Tale of Human Fallibility
		1. Introduction
		2. Good Epistemic Practices
		3. Good Epistemic Practices in the Financial Services Industry
		4. JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” Trading Losses
		5. Epistemic Failings and Some Possible Remedies
			5.1 Underreaction to Evidence
			5.2 The Flip Side of Cognitive Diversity
			5.3 Structural Soundness vs. Individual Talent
		6. The Moral of the Story
		Acknowledgments
		References
	8: Climate Change and Reflexive Law: The EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan
		1. Introduction
		2. Reflexive Law
			2.1 Background: An Alternative to Market-Based and Command-and-Control Regulation
			2.2 Example: The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
			2.3 Mechanism: Reflection and Behavior Change
		3. The EU Action Plan: Financing Sustainable Growth
		4. Reflexive Law in the Action Plan
			4.1 Investor Ignorance and Preferences
			4.2 Long-Termism and the Fit-and-Proper Test
			4.3 Scenario Analysis
			4.4 Accounting Standards
		5. Epistemic Law
			5.1 Belief Revision and Preference Change
			5.2 Salience and the Value of Knowledge
		6. Epistemic Law in Practice
			6.1 Provide Different Information
			6.2 Provide Information Differently
		7. Conclusion
		Acknowledgements
		References
Part III: Ethics
	9: Is the Pursuit of Money Incompatible with Morality? Some Historical and Philosophical Reflections
		1. Introduction
		2. A Brief Overview of Four Common Normative Objections to the Profit Motive
		3. Mandeville’s Challenge: The Benefits of the Market versus the Perfidious Nature of the Profit Motive
		4. Three Common Mistakes When Framing the Issue of the Relationship between Morality and the Profit Motive
		5. Commercial Life and Varieties of Profit Motives: Towards Conditional Acceptability of the Profit Motive
		6. The Limits of Conditional Permissibility
		7. Concluding Remarks
		References
	10: Virtue Theory and the Ethics of Finance
		1. Introduction
		2. Early Virtue Theoretic Critiques of Finance
		3. Assessing Character in Finance
		4. Assessing the Activities of Finance
		5. An Integrated Virtue Theoretic Approach
		References
	11: On the Wrongfulness of Bank Contributions to Financial Crises
		1. Introduction
		2. Financial Crises and Bank Contributions
		3. Financial Crises as Collective Harm Cases
		4. Virtue Ethics
		5. Consequentialism
		6. Scanlonian Contractualism
		7. Conclusion
		Acknowledgements
		References
	12: Money in the Social Contract
		1. Basic Picture
		2. What We Owe Each Other
		3. Natural Justice
		4. Credit Cooperatives
		5. Sovereign Membership
		6. Confidence and Legitimacy
		References
Part IV: Political Philosophy
	13: Credit and Distributive Justice
		1. Credit through the Lens of Distributive Justice
		2. Secured vs. Unsecured Credit
		3. Access to Long-Term Credit at Low Interest Rates Is Limited to the Wealthy
		4. Unsecured Credit Is No Substitute for Income
		5. The Main Benefit of Credit to the Worst-off Come from Indirect Effects of Corporate Credit and Sovereign Borrowing
		6. Conclusion
		Acknowledgements
		References
	14: Freedom and Financial Market Reform
		1. Introduction
		2. Economic Freedom as Less Government (or More Stuff )
		3. Freedom and Accountability
		4. Freedom and Financial Markets
		5. Freedom-Minded Financial Market Reform
		6. Conclusion
		Acknowledgements
		References
	15: Green Central Banking
		1. Introduction
		2. Green Central Banking: Monetary Policy and Political Legitimacy
			2.1 Using Monetary Policy as a Greening Technology
			2.2 The Legitimacy of Green Central Banking
		3. Green Central Banking: A Discourse Analysis
			3.1 It Started in South East Asia: The Road to Climate Awareness
			3.2 The Consensus View in the Western World
			3.3 Divergent Interpretations of the Mandate and the Menu of Policy Options
		4. Ways for Central Banks to Meet the Legitimacy Challenge
		5. Conclusion
		References
		Appendix: Cited Documents from Our Corpus
	16: Bitcoins Left and Right: A Normative Assessment of a Digital Currency
		1. Introduction
		2. What Is Bitcoin?
		3. The Libertarian Case for Bitcoin
			3.1 Right to Oneself
			3.2 Freedom of Contract
			3.3 Right to Privacy
		4. The Egalitarian Case for Bitcoin
			4.1 A Promising Case
			4.2 A Well-ordered Society
		5. Concluding Remarks
		References
Index