> Aren't intangibles exactly that, though perhaps a little broader than specifying particular moral behaviours?
Intangibles can be bought and sold as they aren't attached to anything emotional. Moral behaviours/values, if embedded into the books, have to be through a transaction. How do you transact moral behaviour/values? That is the question I have.
> Goodwill, Brand (which contains value statements), IP, etc, they're given financial value. Perhaps these don't influence shareholder/public actions as much as they could, but the measures are there at least.
Accounting principles state that for anything to be recorded in the Books a prior transaction should exist. Brand and Goodwill, by accounting principles, are only recorded after they are transacted the first time. What that means is: Say you start an enterprise. The enterprise over its lifetime acquires a Brand value. However, you cannot record that Brand value until the enterprise is sold to another entity. Only in that scenario, can the buying entity record it into it's Books as Asset.
EDIT: IP, Copyright or Patents on the other hand can be recorded as Intangibles because you "bought" it from an issuing entity (the Government or any other body which is issuing you the certifications in exchange for a monetary value). Hence a transaction exists prior to the recordation in the Books which has valued the asset.
EDIT: To explain better: The reason you cannot record a Brand value into the Books until it's either sold/acquired is primarily because there is no way to gauge the value of Brand/Goodwill. I may consider my enterprise Brand value to be a million dollars. But you might consider it to have no value. Unless a transaction occurs, a value cannot be arrived at as it inherently has no value. Hence the recordation in the Books happens only and only after a transaction takes place.