What is Really Unethical about Insider Trading?
Jennifer Moore

　　…For many, insider trading has become the primary symbol of a widespread ethical rot on Wall Street and in the business community as a whole.
　　For a practice that has come to epitomize unethical business behavior, insider trading has received surprisingly little ethical analysis. The best ethical assessments of insider trading have come from legal scholars who argue against the practice. But their arguments rest on notions such as fairness or ownership of information that require much more examination than they are usually given. Proponents of insider trading are quick to dismiss these arguments as superficial, but offer very little ethical insight of their own. Arguing almost solely on grounds of economic efficiency, they generally gloss over the ethical arguments or dismiss them entirely. Ironically, their refusal to address the ethical arguments on their merits merely strengthens the impression that insider trading is unethical. Readers are left with the sense that while it might reduce efficiency, the prohibition against insider trading rests on firm ethical grounds. But can we assume this? Not, I think without a good deal more examination.
　　This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I examine critically the principal ethical arguments against insider trading. The arguments fall into three main classes: arguments based on fairness, arguments based on property rights in information, and arguments based on harm to ordinary investors or the market as a whole. Each of these arguments, I contend, has some serious deficiencies. No one of them by itself provides a sufficient reason for outlawing insider trading. This does not mean, however, that there are no reasons for prohibiting the practice. Once we have cleared away the inadequate arguments, other, more cogent reasons for outlawing insider trading come to light. In the second part of. the paper, I set out what I take to be the real reasons for laws against insider trading.
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　　I. Ethical arguments against insider trading
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　　II. Is there anything wrong with insider trading
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　　III. Conclusion
　　I have argued that the real reason for prohibiting insider trading is that it erodes the fiduciary relationship that lies at the heart of our business organizations. The more frequently heard moral arguments based on fairness, property rights in information in information, and harm to ordinary investors, are not compelling. Of these, the fairness arguments seem to me the least persuasive. The claim that a trader must reveal everything that it is in the interest of another party to know, seems to hold up only when the other is someone to whom he owes a fiduciary duty. But this is not really a "fairness" argument at all. Similarly, the "misappropriation" theory is only persuasive if we can offer reasons for corporations not to assign the right to trade on inside information to their employees, I have found these in the fact that permitting insider trading threatens the fiduciary relationship. I do believe that lifting the ban against insider trading would cause harms to shareholders, corporations, and society at large. But again, these harms stem primarily from the cracks in the fiduciary relationship caused by permitting insider trading, rather than from actual trades with insider. Violation of fiduciary duty, in short, is at the center of insider trading offenses, and it is with good reason that the Supreme Court has kept the fiduciary relationship at the forefront of its deliberations on insider trading.

翻译文本：

内幕交易中究竟有什么不道德?
詹妮弗·穆尔

首次发表在《商业伦理杂志》1990年第9期，第171-182页

　　……对很多人来说，内幕交易成了华尔街乃至整个商业界普遍道德败坏的象征。
现实中，内幕交易已经成为不道德商业行为的缩影，但奇怪的是，几乎没人对其进行过伦理分析。对内幕交易最好的伦理评估来自于反对这种行为的法律学者，但他们的理由只是建立在公平和信息所有权这类需要进一步进行论证的概念之上。内幕交易的支持者虽然很快就反驳说这些理由过于肤浅，但却几乎提不出自己的道德见解。他们只是以经济效率为依据，要么虚掩其道德观点，要么完全抛弃。具有讽刺意味的是，他们不做道德上的论证，恰恰使人更加认为内幕交易是不道德的。读者也会感觉到，虽然禁止内幕交易会降低效率，但这种做法是有坚实道德基础的。那么，我们也要坚持这种观点吗？我认为还是做进一步的分析为好。
　　本文分两部分。在第一部分，我将批判性地分析反对内幕交易的主要道德观点。这些观点可以分为三类：公平观点、有关信息财产权的观点、以及对普通投资者或乃至整个市场构成危害的观点。但我认为，所有这些观点都有某些严重缺陷，其中任何一个观点都不足以构成证明内幕交易为非法的理由。但是，这并意味着禁止内幕交易就是毫无根据的。我们澄清这些观点理由不充分之后，证明内幕交易为非法的其他更有说服力的理由就会展现出来。在本文第二部分，我提出了从法律上反对内幕交易的真正理由。
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　　一、反对内幕交易的伦理观点
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　　二、内幕交易有什么错？
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　　三、结论
　　我已经说明了禁止内幕交易的真正原因是，它侵蚀了作为我们商业组织核心的信义关系。人们更常听说的建立在公平、信息财产权以及对普通投资者构成危害等基础上的道德观点，都没有说服力。在所有这些观点中，我认为公平的论据最没说服力。交易者必须向他方透露与其利益相关的所有信息，这种要求只有当交易者对其负有信义义务时，似乎才能成立。但是，这已不属于真正的"公平"观点。同样，"盗用"理论也只有当我们有理由证明公司没授权其员工利用内幕信息进行交易时，才有说服力。我认为，允许内幕交易会威胁到信义关系。我坚信，解除对内幕交易的禁令会损害股东、公司乃至整个社会。但是，损害主要来自因允许内幕交易而造成的信义关系断裂，而不是来自于内幕者的实际交易。总之，违背信义义务是内幕交易构成犯罪的核心所在，因此，信义关系应该是最高法院考虑内幕交易的首要问题。