Description
Book SynopsisMost people use money almost every day, and financial assets have become so important to modern life that they determine our fate both as individuals and as societies. Yet we seldom stop to think about what all of this means, how it works, and how it ought to work. How can a small piece of paper in your wallet have value? How can so much power be vested in the numbers that roll across bankers'' computer screens? What role should financial assets and financial institutions play in our lives and in society?The philosophy of money and finance inquires into these types of questions, and takes a look ''under the hood'' of money and finance, to address issues concerning the nature of money and the normative foundations of financial systems. Although philosophical theorizing about money and finance dates back to antiquity, the topic has only recently emerged as a central research focus. Economic globalization, technological innovation, the events of the 2008 financial crisis, and the Covid pandemic, have brought new urgency to a broad array of questions in this field.The Philosophy of Money and Finance presents sixteen original chapters providing a comprehensive introduction to this exciting new field. The book is divided into four parts, covering metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. Within each part, questions that are central to the topic are presented and discussed by leading scholars. The essays are written in a clear and straightforward manner and without presupposing any background in either philosophy or finance.
Table of ContentsJoakim Sandberg and Lisa Warenski: Introduction I METAPHYSICS 1: Frank Hindriks: The Social Ontology of Money 2: Asya Passinsky: Cryptocurrency: Commodity or Credit? 3: David G. Dick: How Many People Does It Take to Make a Dollar? 4: Christopher J. Cowton: Truth in Financial Accounting II EPISTEMOLOGY 5: Lisa Herzog: Are Financial Markets Epistemically Efficient? 6: Conrad Heilmann, Marta Szymanowska, and Melissa Vergara-Fernández: Financial Economics: What Kind of Science Is It? 7: Lisa Warenski: JPMorgan Chase's London Whale Trading Losses: A Tale of Human Fallibility 8: Boudewijn de Bruin: Climate Change and Reflexive Law: The EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan III ETHICS 9: Adrian Walsh: Is the Pursuit of Money Incompatible with Morality? Some Historical and Philosophical Reflections 10: Kate Padgett Walsh and Nolan Pithan: Virtue Theory and the Ethics of Finance 11: Richard Endörfer: On the Wrongfulness of Bank Contributions to Financial Crises 12: Aaron James: Money in the Social Contract IV POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 13: Marco Meyer: Credit and Distributive Justice 14: Joshua Preiss: Freedom and Financial Market Reform 15: Peter Dietsch, Clément Fontan, Jérémie Dion, and François Claveau: Green Central Banking 16: Joakim Sandberg and Lars Lindblom: Bitcoins Left and Right: A Normative Assessment of a Digital Currency
