"apart from without ethics or morals"
What do you mean by that? Doesn't the board have a duty - legal and moral - to maximise profits for shareholders?

Or, in your world, is ethics just about being fluffy?

(Oh, and, for the record, what grounds your claims of illegality?)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 13:42, 1 reply)

They do have that duty
but I wouldn't say it's moral- it's a basic trait of something being a company that the shareholders expect returns. It's just that when you're a bank, everyone who has 50p is a shareholder- and yet the people who can afford it least are the ones being fucked in the ass.

Yes, they should work as a business. No, they have no moral or legal right to maximise profits by exploiting people through fines, legal beaurocracy, unrealistic promises/loans and so on. It's not ethical to pretend you're "helping" someone by giving them a loan when you KNOW that they cannot repay it, and you're simply waiting to fine them.

We've had stories here about people who can't find money to eat, to travel, or even to get medical care. The banks have proven that there is no humanity in the way they function, even though the business they provide is one that we all need to survive. There's nothing ethical about that.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 14:07, closed)

I still don't know what you mean by "ethical".
It looks like "fluffy" to me.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 14:37, closed)

<a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethical" target="_blank">dictionary.reference.com/browse/ethical</a>
1. pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct.
2. being in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, esp. the standards of a profession.

EDIT: Obviously one's interpretation of the rules and standards is partially subjective. However, I would suggest that codes such as Trading Standards and so on would be badly received by a bank.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 14:48, closed)

*holds head in hands*
*weeps gently*

1. doesn't answer the question, since we can now just ask what you mean by "moral". Subsitituing one term for another doesn't answer the question. And, re. 2, what provides the foundation for these standards? Are they plucked out of the air?

Do you honestly think that codes of practice are morally powerful in their own right?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 15:04, closed)

**hands tissue**
As I already said, morality is entirely subjective. I don't have encyclopaedic knowledge of any moral or legal code, so I can't possibly explain to you what Morals are, or why yours and mine are inherently different- simply that they are.

1. And 2. Are copy/pasted from the site I quoted- simply to ascertain what I personally mean when I say something is ethical or not. So I didn't post 1. to answer the question, simply to place the second quotation in some form of context.

The foundation for the standards would be initially set by the law, and by the standards of the people who run a company. However, there are quite strict trading laws and ethical practices which all businesses in the UK at least are legally obliged to follow- of which the Trading Standards act, which I mentioned, is one.

What the previous poster hinted at when mentioning legality is that, if the Banks are a "business", then why do they conform to a different set of standards to those which are enforced by the government on every other business in this country?

Morality aside, ethical practices aside, they do NOT act like a business as far as the law in concerned.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 15:25, closed)

Oh, please stop.
Morality is entirely subjective? Really? Really? So there's no grounds on which you can say that Hitler actually did anything wrong, then? And if you can't possibly explain "what morals are", what are you doing making moral claims? By your own definition, you have no idea what you mean - so quite how anyone else is supposed to understand you is something of a mystery.

In fact, you didn't say that morality was subjective before. You said that the interpretation was subjective. Can you not tell the difference between something and its interpretation?

You still haven't answered the question about the origins of moral claims, though: to say that it's the law simply won't do - again, because that'd mean that there'd be no way to evaluate the desirability of a given law; nor would there ever be any moral reason to change the law.

Moreover, most codes of practice go quite a way beyond the demands of the law - so, if they're compelling, it can't be because of their legal foundation.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 15:32, closed)

Do you want me to stop, or to address the points you've made?
I said that morality was subjective, and that in this case it was initially dependant on the law and only THEN could we apply our own morals- and yes, they are subjective.

"What are you doing making moral claims?" - I'm making them based on my own moral code. What I meant (and probably didn't explain too clearly, since there's a fair deal of misunderstanding here) is that there is NO WAY my moral code is the same as anyone else's. Even in subtle ways, it would be different. Therefore there is no way my moral code would be justitifiable to someone who thinks otherwise.

For example, there's a difference in someone who thinks it's morally right to exploit people in order to protect money invested in shareholder accounts, rather than showing some shred of humanity in dealings with people who don't understand the workings of a bank. To me, ethics are about humanity, not capitalism.

You haven't told me what your morals are either, and frankly I don't care. They're bound to be something that coincides with the Law, since that's the code we're all raised to follow. Other than that, I'm sure you're very different from me, and wouldn't agree with my moral code.

Yes, everything is rooted in the law. I was raised as a Christian, so after the law comes my religious code. After that comes the code that my mother taught to me- manners, rules, and so on. I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate it if I told you I feel the origins of morality are rooted in the Bible, so how about in the generations of people before us, who decided how to act and how to behave in order to function as a civilised society? Hell, morality probably came before that, when Darwin's ancestors first decided to give a banana to the starving marmot in the next tree. In our society, morality could be said to come from the wars (Dulce Et Decorum Est?), from the civil unrest, from the history that made our country- all things that are compiled in our history, our law, our consciousness.

Second, being subjective does NOT mean that our subjectivity is always justified. I know that people disagree with my own moral code, just as I disagree with some people's... but unless their actions are embodied in some physical form outside the boundaries of the law then there's nothing we can do to change them. I find it frankly offensive that you associate the freedom of conviction that I've been trying to explain to you to the actions of the Nazi party.

(I have no internet for the next week, so sorry if I suddenly disappear after this post. :( )
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 17 Jul 2009, 22:44, closed)