The Ethics of the Financial Crisis and Financial Reform

The paper analyses the financial crisis and financial reform from two alternative ethical perspectives as compared to the mainstream one in economics, utilitarianism. It contrasts deontology with the ethics of care and argues that the rule-based deontological approach is not able to prevent a next serious crisis. It argues instead that apart from a minimum of rules, the contextual, relationship-oriented ethics of care is necessary for a stable and client-oriented financial sector. It poses the hypothesis that such an ethics of care is already available in the sector, although marginally, and quite effective. This hypothesis is tested with exploratory survey data from the Netherlands as well as two case studies of caring financial innovation from the Netherlands.