Business Ethics After the Global Financial Crisis

2Is Financialisation a Vice? Perspectives From Virtue Ethics and Catholic Social Teaching

Alejo José G. Sison and Ignacio Ferrero

Introduction: Financialisation and Its Enabling Conditions

Perhaps the simplest definition of ‘financialisation’ can be found in a Catholic Social Teaching (CST) document, which describes it as ‘the shift in the capitalist economy from production to finance’ (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2012, p. 9). Certainly, this does not refer so much to abandoning production for finance as in the greater weight now given to finance instead of production. However, earlier, more technical definitions can be gleaned from Epstein (2002, p. 3), ‘the increasing importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial ...