4VIRTUE ETHICS AND THE ACCOUNTING PROFESSION
Introduction
High-profile ethical failures during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in increasing regulation and oversight of the accounting profession (Cowton 2017); yet scandals have continued to plague the profession in more recent decades. Accounting is an art (techne) requiring considerable professional judgment, and lists of rules cannot anticipate every situation (Melé 2005; West 2017). In fact, accounting rules often require significant professional judgment to interpret, and these rules require frequent amendments to accommodate new social trends and economic practices. Therefore, regulations that focus on specific actions may be an insufficient foundation upon which to build ...
