Accounting, ethics and human existence: Lightly unbearable, heavily kitsch Gordon Boyce Department of Accounting, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia 1. Introduction The themes of inquiry in Everett and Tremblay’s (2014) paper, ‘‘Moral Will and Moral Skill in a Heteronomous Field’’ (hereafter E&T) have been sorely neglected in the accounting literature to date, making this a very welcome paper. Overall, E&T address the question of what it means to be ethical in the field of internal audit and how various internal/personal and contextual factors and pressures impact on ethicality in this domain. They adopt a more sophisticated approach to ethical analysis than has hitherto appeared in any significant way in the accounting literature, by considering and combining deontic, teleic, and aretaic perspectives. E&T utilise three sets of interesting resources to analyse and understand ethics in the contemporary field of internal auditing from three different professional perspectives. Overall, although the empirical dimensions of the paper are interesting, I believe that the rhetorical, normative, and polemical dimensions are of most interest. In this aspect of the paper, Critical Perspectives on Accounting 25 (2014) 197–209 A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 24 May 2013 Accepted 29 July 2013 Available online 14 October 2013 Mots cle ´s: Critique E ´ thique Palabras clave: Crı ´tica E ´ tica Keywords: Critical Ethics Morality Accounting profession Existence Internal audit Kitsch Lightness Milan Kundera Whistleblowing A B S T R A C T This paper offers a critical examination of the interrelationship between accounting, ethics, and the question of the meaning of human existence. Starting with a critique of the approach, data and method in Everett & Tremblay (2014), I broadly consider how different approaches to ethics and morality within capitalist markets play out. Drawing on the work of Milan Kundera, and briefly considering perspectives on the WorldCom fraud, I consider how the themes of lightness, weight, and kitsch are emblematic of many approaches to ethics within accounting. ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. E-mail address: g.boyce@latrobe.edu.au. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Critical Perspectives on Accounting jou r nal h o mep ag e: w ww .els evier .co m/lo c ate/c pa 1045-2354/$ – see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2013.10.001