The Importance of Morality in Virtue Ethics

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Doug Norris: If you find a wallet and no one's around, what do you do? He says most people would feel uneasy about returning it. The man I want to become is the man who returns the wallet because that person can be trusted in civilized society," he says. "For me that kind of helps us maybe have a framework for talking about it"

Economist and author Michael Munger of Duke University talks about human wants and desires with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Human beings have desires about our desires. Can we change what we want? And how should economists and normal human beings think about doing the right thing, what we often call morality? Is acting morally self-interested behavior or is it possible to act selflessly?