Rationality, Consistency, and Ethical Market Participation

Thomas Minnick
Boise State University

People often make decisions about the markets in which they will participate, and especially those in which they will not participate, on ethical criteria. Even given a simple set of such criteria it is often inordinately difficult to remain consistent in observing it. To what extent is the pursuit of consistency under ethical constraints rational? The answer depends on whether one accepts a deontological or a consequentialist ethic. Under the former scheme one must become informed about the markets in which one participates, and assess the degree to which such investigation is obligatory. With respect to the latter scheme one should also be informed but may have greater latitude in pursuing a strategy to signal the markets about one's ethical preferences. In this case one may be concerned in a merely perfunctory way with being consistent because the purpose of the behavior is to effect a change in market practices, not to avoid every breach in the application of the ethic.