A banker’s code of ethics

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.