Then there is the so-called moral hazard, the behavior that can be expected from people who are insulated from punishment for their actions.
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Indeed, an expectation by financial market participants that financial crises will never occur would create its own form of moral hazard and encourage behavior that would make financial crises more, rather than less, likely.
But they are the kinds of moral questions that affect personal behavior.
While nobody wants to see a family locked out of their house due to foreclosure, we run the risk of moral hazard if we continue to reward irresponsible behavior.
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Looking back on the 2000s, however, keeping the broader picture in mind, has there ever been a period, outside warfare, where public behavior appeared so detached from a moral framework?
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Politicians since at least the Johnson administration have engaged in the technique, and while its etymological origins may be in dispute, the term has since entered wide use, referring to a form of moral suasion, usually by government officials attempting to alter behavior or influence markets.
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At the same time, he expects the subtle moral message will come through clearly enough to change viewers' behavior, persuading them to buy more auto and homeowners policies.
"There are many occasions in which anonymity is a perfectly acceptable and, in fact, morally responsible form of behavior, and the protection of anonymity is a moral requirement, " said Rachelle Hollander, director of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science and Technology Program, which funded the project.
Eckhard Cordes, Cchaiman and chief executive of the German retailer METRO, set the early morning tone at the leadership and trust panel, urging business leaders to help set the moral agenda, echoing an emerging theme across sessions, that sustainable behavior is good for both companies and society.
Instead, the moral molecule works like a gyroscope, helping us to maintain our balance between behavior based on trust and behavior based on wariness and distrust.
Fortunately, America has an opportunity to bring more than moral suasion to bear on those who partner with our enemies and, thereby, help underwrite their threatening behavior: Make them choose whether they wish to do business with: us or with the Iranians.
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