The Argument That We Should Take Preferences as Given

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Munger: The idea that you might want to have preferences about your preferences is something we, I was never taught, never thought of. It's actually vaguely heretical, as you suggest, in our guild, our religion of economics. But there's a lot to be said for the argument that we should take preferences as given by social scientists looking at behavior of strangers out in the world.

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?