Bernard Madoff and Beyond: The Ethical Challenges in Modern Finance

The collapse of Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme highlighted significant failures in corporate ethics and regulatory oversight. This assignment delves into the ethical implications of such financial frauds by examining the case study of Madoff’s fraudulent activities. It discusses how lapses in moral responsibility, both at individual and organizational levels, contributed to one of the largest financial scandals in history. Through analyzing sources like Deason et al., Manning, and Trevino & Nelson, we explore the broader lessons that can be drawn for strengthening ethical practices and preventing future frauds. The assignment also reflects on the necessity of robust regulatory frameworks and continuous ethical education within the corporate world to mitigate risks associated with financial misconduct. By understanding these dynamics, students will gain insights into both the moral and practical dimensions of maintaining integrity in business operations.

Running head: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE & ETHICS
Ethical theories of moral agents
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Discussion:.................................................................................................................................4
Ethical theories:......................................................................................................................4
Application of the theories:....................................................................................................7
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................10
Reference:................................................................................................................................12

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Executive summary:
The report is based on certain principles of ethics and a detailed discussion on the normative
ethical approaches has been made. The duty and role of the moral agents in a corporate
institution has been prescribed. The tendency of white collar crime has grown and the
executive members of a company are involved in such scams. According to the normative
approach, the moral duty of the agents should analyse the rightfulness of an action and they
will implement their guidelines based on such decisions. However, the real factors are quite
different and this report has discussed about two different cases where the moral agents have
failed to perform their work and stated the consequence they had to face. Apart from the case,
the ethical dimensions and moral character of an agent has also been discussed in this report.

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Introduction:
Ethics are certain moral duties that help to systemise a work or culture and
differentiate in between the right and wrong (Shafer-Landau, 2014). Ethics are defined as
good habit by the Greek anthropologists. It concentrates on the human morality and classified
into three parts such as meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. According to
Rushworth Kidder, ethics helps to find out the morality within a human being. In the words
of Larry Churchill, ethics direct the human action and maintain the human capacity. Moral
agents are the person who separate the positive from the negative and decide their action
based on that. The main objective of the moral agents is to observe the situation so that no
unjustified harm can take place (Forcehimes, 2015). The executive members of a company
are playing the role of moral agents and their duty is to take a vision on the company affairs
In case of any wrong activity, they should have to give necessary advice to the management
in order to avoid the unjustified harm.
The proper approach of the moral agents regarding ethics is to be determined and
according to the philosophers, moral agents follow the normative ethics (May, 2017).
Normative theories help the moral agents to point out the right and wrong action. However,
normative theory can be divided into certain parts such as utilitarianism, categorical
imperative, virtue ethics and intuitionism. Ethical decision of the moral agents is multi-
dimensional. The dimensions can be categorised as: (i) sense of social responsibility, (ii)
organisational culture, and (iii) organisational policies taken by the moral agents. It has been
observed that there are certain companies, where the moral agents had not maintained the
ethical approaches and that wrong activity led the company towards its winding up process.
This report will discuss about such two companies and will point out the duty and role of the
moral agents and ethical dimensions to denote their action.

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Discussion:
Ethical theories:
Ethics are the moral principles that determine the nature and character of an act or
work. The philosophers have divided the ethical approaches into three parts: meta-ethics,
normative ethics and applied ethics. The duties of the moral agents are influenced by the
normative ethical approaches (MacKinnon & Fiala, 2014). In general, normative ethics are
denoted certain ethical actions that are to be taken place during the performance a job or
determine a duty. It makes an investigation to the action taken by the moral agents and
determines the standards of an action. It is different from the meta-ethical approach and do
not concentrate on the metaphysics or lingual aspects. Moral agents are governed by the
normative theory as this theory made an attempt to investigate the reason that makes an
action right or wrong (Honneth, 2014).
However, philosophers have divided the theory in certain parts. The first part can
be called as utilitarianism. This theory attempts to determine the rightness and wrongness of
an action by the virtue of cost-benefit analysis. The supporters of this theory believe that an
act can be good or bad as per their consequence. If the consequence is good, it will be called
as right and if the consequence is bad, it will be termed as negative work. The utilitarian
supporters believe that a person should not discriminate others with the intension to earn
benefit for them. Everyone has an opportunity to choose either good or bad action. Person
should concentrate over the consequence of an action (Christians et al., 2015). However, it is
not mandatory to apply this theory only in case of making a decision. The theory can be
applied in every possible steps of a human being.

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The second part of normative theory is known as categorical imperative. This
theory deals with the rationalism and control the behaviour of a person. According to Robert
Johnson, the rationalism is governed by the universal law and motivates the people so that
they could not undermine others with an object to feather their own nest.
The third part of the theory can be called as virtue ethics. The main profounder of
this theory was Aristotle. This theory concentrates on the personal happiness and suggests
taking all the right action to fulfil the happiness (Frederickson & Rohr, 2015). However, it
should be kept in mind that the notion of Aristotle regarding the happiness is quite different
from the pleasure. It is the rational duty of the person to develop the standard with the help of
good things and should not deceive others.
The fourth and the last part of the theory are known as intuitionism. W. D. Ross
had coined the theory to explain the nature and character of right and wrong action. It has
been observed by Ross that people has certain prima facie duties and that duties can be
divided into certain parts such as duty of fidelity, duty of reparation etc.
Therefore, it can be stated that the main objective of the normative theory is to
verify the action of a person whether the action done by him is right or wrong. In this report,
two different cases has been discussed on the duties of the moral agency. The moral agency
denotes the capability of an individual to judge the nature of an activity and determine
required action based on the rightness or wrongness of the act.
Moral characters are playing an important role and it has been observed that the
character is depending on the theory of normative principle and empirical psychology. The
character evaluates the moral qualities of a person and consists of virtue and vices as well
(Trevino & Nelson, 2016). Morality should have certain characters such as empathy, courage,
fortitude, honesty and loyalty. These characters help to grow the moral nature within a human

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being and assist to achieve the goal rightfully. The moral characters are necessary to make an
ethical decision (Brey, 2014).
In this report, two different case have been discussed where the moral agents have
failed to maintain their duties properly and both the companies were held liable for ponzi
scams. The executives of the both the companies are Bernard Madoff and Bernard Ebbers.
Bernard Madoff was a financier who had made false promise to certain investors to invest
their savings and was being charged under the offence of fraud, money laundering and theft
(Azim & Azam, 2016). The process adopted by him is called Ponzi scheme. However, Ponzi
schemes are not illegal, rather quite profitable. In this scheme, the promisor collects money
from investors and repays the promised amount to the old investors and makes a huge profit
(Baer, 2014). However, if the promise maker does not repay the amount to the investors, the
act becomes illegal. Madoff was a well known person in the financial world and therefore, it
becomes easier to him to attract the investors and grab their money and flown off. It has been
observed that the accountant and the personal legal advisor of Madoff had to face
imprisonment for such scam (Lewis, 2016).
Similar mishap has been taken place in case of Bernard Ebber. He was the CEO of
WorldCom. He was held liable for the scam of $100 million and secured his place in the five
biggest and historical Wall Street scam of all time. Ebber had joined as a financier in the
Long Distance Discount Services. Later he joined as the CEO of WorldCom, which is a
telecommunication-based commercial house. Before the appointment of Ebber, the managing
director of WorldCom made certain fraudulent entries. After his joining, he came to know
about these entities and conspire to falsify the financial reports. However, the activities were
suppressed and came into light after the publication of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
However, the American court had pleased to pass an order of imprisonment for a term of 150
years to him.

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Therefore, it has been observed from the cases that both the persons, Bernard
Ebber and Bernard Madoff were the executive members and very well known in their
respective fields. Therefore, they should have played the role of a moral agent. However, it
has been observed that they failed to do so and engaged in certain scams to gain own profit.
According to the normative theory, the moral agents should not make any profit in illegal
way or with any illegal purpose. They should have to determine the rightness and the
wrongness of an action and decide their working criteria based on that. They should apply
ethics while completing their works and all their works should be based on rationality.
As per the theory mentioned by Emanuel Kant, a moral agent should act in good
faith and should maintain a good will. It is clear from the Utilitarianism theory that all the
important positions holder of any entities or the moral agents should have to act for the
production of good possibility and assess the moral codes for the betterment of humanity and
justice (Richman, 2014). However, in these cases, it had been observed that none of the
executive rank holder had fulfilled their respective duties and engages themselves in certain
illegal activities. All of them had taken an active part in the scams and flown away with the
money of the investors.
Application of the theories:
It is important to apply the ethical prospects to the decisions of the moral
agents such as the apex managements and mention a mandate for them to understand the
ethical perspectives. It is the duty of the moral agents to verify their actions on the basis of
the normative theory. Normative theory helps them to identify and point out the rightness and
wrongness of the action so that they can decide an action framework. According to the
utilitarian, courage can be considered as an element of morality. Aristotle's discussion of
moral character and virtue in particular, is the most influential treatment of such issues. For
this reason, his discussion will be used as a beginning point. A moral agent must have certain

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moral characters and in case of normative ethics, the characters must include certain major
approaches such as consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. The application of the
consequentialism theory points out the action that takes place to get the best result. As per
deontological theories, the term morality is based on certain duties and can be considered as
ethics of rules. However, the last approach is quite different from both of these. It
concentrates on the habits of the individual and not to the rules. There are certain
psychological aspects of the character and it has been observed in most of the cases that the
characters are divided into two parts such as the moral and the immoral. All the agents, who
are morally responsible for an act, can be regarded as moral character or moral agents and the
person lack of this character can be treated as non-moral person.
However, it is the moral responsibility of the agents to maintain the positive
mentality and set out plans according to the nature of the acts. It can therefore be stated that
the moral agents should have to show certain reactive attitudes towards the action they have
taken. The reactive attitudes can be renamed as the Traditional View of Moral Character. It
helps to think of the Traditional View as a family of similar and related views, rather than a
fully developed and determinate view itself. The moral responsibility will lead to the moral
development.
In the cases, it has been observed that the executive members as well as the
associated members of both the companies have failed to maintain the rules stated above.
They were hold a respectful and important position of the companies and it were their duties
to step in the right track and provide necessary guidelines to the investors. However, it has
been observed that they have failed to do so as they were engaged in certain scams to earn
their own benefit (West, 2017). It has also been noticed that they had adopted certain
fraudulent methods to cheat the investors who believed them for certain purposes. All the
moral responsibilities that have been discussed and prescribed by certain eminent scholars

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and philosophers were being denied by them and they had failed to fulfil the requirements of
the moral agents.
In the case of Bernard Ebber, it has been observed that he came across the truth
that his company had forged certain financial documents and falsify the finance report. As the
CEO of the company, it was his moral duties to inform the proper authority and maintained a
moral approach regarding the same. However, the real event is something different. It has
been observed that he had not taken any action regarding the same and involved in the scam
of $100 million. The executive members of the company are treated as the moral agents and
they investigate the rightness or wrongness in a job or work and implement certain guidelines
based on the same. Therefore, it can be stated that Bernard Ebber had failed to comply with
all the moral duties and ethics.
In case of Bernard Madoff, similar situation had cropped up and he engaged in a
Ponzi scheme that placed him in the historical scams of the Wall Street (Peterson, 2016). It
has been observed that he had collected money from the investors by make a promise to
double their money and after collecting all the capital, he had flown away without keeping his
promise. He was a reputed financier and he should maintain the rules prescribed in the
normative theory (Mandell, 2015). There are certain features too that should be maintained
by them.
W. D. Ross had stated certain duties to be maintained by the moral agents during
their operation of works such as duty of fidelity, duty of gratitude, duty of reparation, duty of
beneficence and duty of no injury. The main objective of duty of fidelity is to keep the
promise that has been made to others. However, it has been observed in both the cases that
the executive members had failed to perform the duty of fidelity and failed to keep the
promise. The duty of reparation has not been maintained too. Intuition is the way

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contemplation that can lead to knowledge of self-evidence. Ross had stated that the duties
should have to be determined first and then the agent should implement the same to others.
In both the cases, it is important to apply the provisions of normative approaches. It
is the duty of the moral agents to foster certain ethical approaches for the benefit of the
organisation. It should be immoral if they will engage their idea to earn secret profit by
denying the ethical rules and behaviour. Researchers are identifying an array of beneficial
outcomes arising from “ethical leadership,” including increased willingness of employees to
use voice to improve their organization, greater employee job satisfaction and sense of well-
being, and increased trust in organization leaders, both from employees and the public
(Gibson, 2016). However, Local government is a vital focus for ethics research, given that
local jurisdictions across the globe have democratic mandates and responsibilities for
disbursing significant quantities of public funds. It has observed in both the cases that both
the moral agents had to face harsh penalties and lifetime imprisonment for the acts they had
done during their working session.
According to Bryman, leadership can be defined as “a process of social influence
whereby a leader steers members of a group towards a goal”. The construction of the ethical
leaders are vague as in focusing on influencing mechanisms, they do not specify normative
reference points that ethical leaders can use in promoting followers to behave ethically.
However, it can be stated that the moral agents should abide by the principles of normative
theories to avoid any ethical dilemmas (Bernard et al., 2016).
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that ethics are playing an important role in determine the
behaviour of human being and prescribe suggestion on the rightfulness of the human action.
There are certain kinds of ethical approaches present of which normative approach make an

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attempt to determine the duty of the moral agents and prescribe certain framework so that
they can make all the important decisions based on the same principle. In this report, two
cases are being discussed that point out the ethical duty of the executive members of a
company and consequence they have to face on violating the ethical principles. The executive
members of the companies are known as the moral agents and they should have to maintain
certain wise steps for the betterment of the company and secure the interest of the others. The
object of the normative approach is to notice so that no one can earn illegal gain or profit and
they should have to make a proper action plan after analysing the rightfulness of the action
(Deason, Rajgopal, & Waymire, 2015). In both the cases, there were certain common factors.
It has been observed that both Bernard Ebber and Bernard Madoff had infringed the rules of
the moral agents and deceived others by non-maintaining the promises. According to Gregory
Bigley, a moral agent should have to maintain the provisions of the normative ethics as they
are holding an important position and they should not deceive the others for the interest of
equity and justice.