ABSTRACT
Decentralized finance (DeFi) shares with blockchain technologies a refutation of interpersonal trust and norm-obedient behavior, suggesting technical solutions to problems of financial coordination that substitute for that lack. Through this, DeFi equips the technology with the capacity to induce norm-obedient behavior. The chapter discusses the ethical implications of this strategy against the background of an understanding of ethics, borrowed from Michel Foucault, as differing from moral code and norm-obedient behavior. From that perspective, ethics is first and foremost a reflection on moral self-conduct at the forefront of (moral or technical) code. In the case of Defi, ethical behavior is problematized and debated that concerns itself with the subjective qualities that must be cultivated in order to participate in DeFi in the first place, to engage in it with one’s resources and to accept its incentive structures, rules and regulations.
