Attaining to the Things That Matter Most

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"Attention may be at the very heart of the moral life. If we can really attend to what most merits our attention, i think it opens the possibility of really becoming better people and leading er lives," he says. "I'm in a profession medicine. I don't think that an accident that that person is called the attending maybe they are supposed to see more clearly than anybody else what really needs to be attended to here."

Physician and careful reader Richard Gunderman of Indiana University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how Adam Smith and Leo Tolstoy looked at greed. Drawing on Tolstoy's short story, "Master and Man," and adding some Thomas Hobbes along the way, Gunderman argues that a life well-lived requires us to rise above our lower desires. Join Gunderman and Roberts for a sleigh ride into a snowy blizzard, where you won't find your way by following rules, but rather by recognizing what needs to be seen.