Aristotle said character was a kind of rule utilitarianism where you're choosing habits that if you were always to do this thing, you would be a better person and you'd be happier. So I'm the sort of person who returns wallets because I have cultivated that over time so not only do I believe it, it's actually true. And then I have this chance to return a wallet and I do it because I know that I am the sort of people who returns wallets. That is a mythology unless I in fact when presented with that setting act in that way. Now, you might be able to create a set of conditions where I would break that habit. But for some people,
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?