Richard: I would rather skip a meal and have a great conversation than than feed my face. In this sense, the very act of attending to something can be a kind of moral act. What do we attend to most regularly and closely? The performance of the financial markets or new opportunities to advance our career in wealth? Or the unfolding life stories of our family and friends?
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.