Only in Scandinavia… From Oil-Rich Norway Hires Philosopher As Moral Compass:
Henrik Syse, a professional philosopher, says he gets ribbed by his family that ‘five of my 10 best friends are dead Greeks.’ But this fall he put aside writing a book on Plato to ponder a more practical puzzle: what to do with around $190 billion?Mr. Syse started work in September as the in-house ethicist for the Norwegian government’s Petroleum Fund, one of the world’s largest pools of investment capital. ‘It has been a steep learning curve,’ says the 39-year-old academic. ‘I’m a philosopher. I’m not a banker.’
With a new office in the Norwegian Central Bank, he gets paid to ruminate on how, at a time of surging energy prices, the world’s third-biggest oil exporter can best match profit and principle. Investment, he says, ‘is teeming with ethical issues.’ He has begun trying to figure out how the Petroleum Fund, the custodian of Norway’s oil earnings, can use its investments to get companies to behave more ethically.