ABSTRACT
This chapter articulates the importance of character-based morality to our happiness and introduces and supports the virtue ethics point of view taken in this book: individual motivation rather than action should be at the core of our moral evaluations. The chapter introduces some examples from the economic literature on how virtue ethics could inform economic behavior (in the marketplace). It demonstrates how they need to appreciate the difference between actions (e.g., practicing honesty) and motivation (e.g., being honest). In the end, however, there appears to be no meaningful recognition that the internalization of virtues is vital to a sense of fulfillment. This connection would only be established when we are “properly” motivated and aware of what truly matters. Someone who finds it painful and inconvenient to do the right thing cannot be said to have been adequately motivated, even when they perform the prosocial act. The final part of the chapter is devoted to philosophical and psychological inconsistencies underlying the economic conception of welfare.
