Game theory
Description
When we think of the global financial crisis, putting on ethical glasses, we usually think of the greed culture among bankers, the excess of bonuses in their remuneration structure, and the excessive risk-taking that, many think, is the result of that. In tonight's lecture, I want to show that an equally important ethical problem in the financial sector has to do with the way bankers and other financials handle knowledge. That is, the way they gather, process, store, communicate information, or what philosophers call epistemic ethics. Epistemic ethics deals with moral obligations we have when it comes to knowledge acquisition. And this was - and is - not always the case in the financial sector. Banks are not curious enough to research the creditworthiness of the companies they lend money to. They outsource that kind of task to credit rating agencies. Indeed, they are obliged to do so by the government. But even the credit rating agencies lack epistemic ethics. Their research is substandard. Ordinary citizens are not spared either. The way most people gather information about mortgages is epistemically unsound. One takes weeks to choose a kitchen, but the financing of the kitchen is decided in half an hour. In this lecture, I use some concrete examples to show how philosophers currently view epistemic virtues, and how epistemic virtues can be transformed into concrete policies. Although the examples are mainly from the financial sector, the theory of epistemic virtues is general enough to be usefully employed in other sectors as well
Speaker(s)
Boudewijn de Bruin studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, where he also obtained his PhD with a dissertation on the philosophical and logical foundations of game theory, a mathematical theory that attempts to explain the behaviour of economic agents. De Bruin is currently a professor of financial ethics at the University of Groningen, and has held guest positions at Berkeley, Harvard, Cambridge and Paris. With Alex Oliver, from the University of Cambridge, he is leading a major project on trust in banks funded by NWO. He is the author of numerous publications in ethics and political theory. Cambridge University Press will publish a book this year on Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis: Why Incompetence is Worse than Greed
Location
Utrecht
Organiser
Philosophy & Technology
Name and contact details for information
Further information from drs.ing. Henk Uijttenhout (vz), tel: 070 - 3875293 / 06 - 26715554 or via the e-mail address below