The ethics of bankruptcy / Jukka Kilpi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kilpi, Jukka, 1954- author.

Series:

Professional ethics.

Professional ethics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Corporate debt--Moral and ethical aspects.

Corporate debt.

Bankruptcy--Moral and ethical aspects.

Bankruptcy.

Social responsibility of business.

Physical Description:

xiv, 220 p.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The fundamental ethical problem in bankruptcy is that insolvents have promised to pay their debts but can not keep their promise. The Ethics of Bankruptcy examines the morality of bankruptcy. The author compares and contrasts the Humean doctrine of promises as useful conventions with the Kantian view of autonomous agency constituting promissory obligations; he explores ethical concerns raised by forgiveness, utilitarianism and distributive justice and the moral aspects of insolvents' contractual, fiduciary, tortious and criminal liability. Finally, the author assesses recent bankruptcy law reforms. Bankruptcies severely hurt creditors and society. For the insolvents and their families the experience is painful and stigmatising, yet philosophers have paid little attention to the moral aspects of this violent social phenomenon. The Ethics of Bankruptcy is the first comprehensive study that employs the tools of ethics to examine the controversies surrounding insolvency, which makes valuable and sometimes controversial reading in a decade recovering from the Recession.

Contents:

chapter Profilogue

part Part I The ethical trouble and its makers A perennial plague

chapter 1 The institution and the conflicts behind it

part Part II

Should debts be paid?

chapter 2 Natural law, consequentialism and contractualism

Theories of promising and their shortfalls

chapter 3 In search of the ultimate obligation

Why a metaethical affair?

chapter 4 Ethics founded on autonomy: a modest objectivist foundationalist interpretation of Kant Reviving the metaphysics of morals: a Kantian bridge

A modest objectivist foundationalist interpretation of Kant

chapter 5 Autonomy and promissory obligations

KANT ON PROMISES

part Part III Ethical principles of insolvency Should debts always be paid?

chapter 6 Going broke, breaking promises

chapter 7 Deontological ethics and insolvency

chapter 8 What kind of discharge?

part Part IV

A counterattack

chapter 9 Propping up civil liability / Contract, breach of trust and tort

chapter 10 Punishment

part Part V

A current affair

chapter 11 Bankruptcy law reform

An ethical perspective

chapter 12 Gearing up, crashing loud

Should high-flyers be punished for insolvency?

chapter Part VI

Chador or gauze?

chapter 13 Corporate moral personhood

chapter 14 Moral responsibility for corporate debts

chapter Epilogue.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [208]-213) and index.

ISBN:

9781134694433

1134694431

9781134694440

113469444X

9781280110153

1280110155

9780203268551

0203268555

9780203002414

0203002415

OCLC:

264444372