GUTMANN CENTER FOR PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT at the University of Vienna http://www.gutmann-center.at is pleased to invite to the following PUBLIC LECTURE: - Apologies for any cross-postings!! - Date: November 9th 2004, 4.30 p.m. - Speaker: Ernesto Rossi di Montelera, Observatoire de la Finance http://www.obsfin.ch/ Title: "PROFIT AND ETHICS: ENEMIES, PARTNERS, OR UNCONCERNED?" Abstract: Why should we talk about ethics in the context of financial activities, a field that would appear to be highly and exclusively technical ? Anyway, we must face the fact that the topic of ethics is more and more widely addressed (but also feared) in the economic and financial communities. It looks as if ethics were simultaneously perceived as an obstacle to the competition for profit but also as a profitable sales proposition ! Do we have in fact a clear idea of what ethics are and what is the meaning of the word ? It certainly has something to do with the idea of trust and of shared rules (and values) as a necessary condition for a smooth establishment and functioning of financial relations. So the question arises : are ethics a cost that should be born in the superior interest of the civil society, or a condition for better performances ? Should one expect from "ethical funds" a better return or a better conscience ? The obvious need for trust leads to the question of Common Good, a notion of respectable antiquity, but very difficult to define and to implement. Basical questions should than be raised : how do we take into consideration the complexity of any reality ? How can we define its various levels and bring them to bear in our decisions ? What help can we find in certain traditional doctrines, as for instance the doctrine of virtues (of which maybe the virtue of liberalitas is a good example in our case) ? Are we not sometime (or too often) the victims of utopian illusions, as in the case of the quest for a risk-free (zero risk !) society ? What could we say of such trends as "responsible investment" or "microfinance" ? The primary problem of ethics is not the definition of the correct behaviours or the drafting of codes of deontology, but the search for the ends and means to be discovered in the reality of things, in the nature of man and in the meaning of his actions : before the questions about how things should be comes the question of what things are and to what ends we should direct them. In our case the primary question could be, for instance : what is money ? Location: Bank Gutmann AG (http://www.gutmann.at), Schwarzenbergplatz 16, A - 1010 Vienna, Austria Participation is free, but REGISTRATION required: brigitte.juchelka(a)gutmann.at phone: +43-1-50220-357 Further information about the Gutmann Center: Mag. Dorothea Grimm Gutmann Center for Portfolio Management University of Vienna phone: +43-1-4277-38186 mail: dorothea.grimm(a)univie.ac.at web: www.gutmann-center.at