The federal government has been pursuing insider trading aggressively as a form of “securities fraud,” but is there really any justification for condemning—legally or morally—the practice of trading on the best information one can get about a company? After briefly summarizing the law of insider trading, this talk will examine a variety of arguments against the practice and conclude that it ought to be legal, and that although at least some instances of insider trading are subject to moral criticism with respect to honesty, there is another respect in which insider trading can be morally praiseworthy.
