At root, it is the modern belief that the essence of moral action is neither expecting nor receiving any personal benefit (or, even better, suffering a loss from that act) that underlies the condemnation of profit-seeking.

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Even more disappointing was the action plan, perhaps the essence of the exercise.

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The Bank of England and America's Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have issued a joint paper which is in essence an action plan for making the biggest banks - such as the UK's Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, and Citigroup and JP Morgan in the US - safer.

BBC: The cost of making big banks safe

The protesting employees have recently taken up a "work-to-rule" action -- in essence, performing only the bare minimum of work required by their contracts in an attempt to slow airline activity and pressure management to pay attention to their grievances.

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