Maxims of Action in a Financial Co-operative: Epistemological and Theoretical Issues

Abstract

This article focuses on the sense and function of a set of maxims which sums up the normative foundations of professional-client relationships in a French credit union. This set constitutes the main result of an exploratory and essentially descriptive field study. Discussion attempts to show that no single moral normative framework is appropriate to account for the set as a whole, although an ethic of care seems prima facie relevant. However, I will argue that the particularist-generalist distinction helps to make the set intelligible, because it reveals the apparent opposition between the determinate professional roles and indeterminate family roles fulfilled by client advisors. Drawing from this indeterminateness, the article concludes on the paradoxical use of vagueness in the realization of values within an institution, and suggests a reference to the American pragmatism with respect to the theorization of the set of maxims.