Incentives matter, sure. But what should you do when following the incentives means quietly participating in something wrong? Psychologist Adam Mastroianni argues that obeying bad incentives–shading a headline for clicks, keeping the found wallet because no one’s watching–is “loser behavior,” a surrender of the hardest and most human task: figuring out right from wrong for yourself. In this wide-ranging EconTalk conversation, he and Russ Roberts explore Le Guin’s “Omelas,” the “big fish” you glimpse that could upend your whole life, and Charles Sumner’s near-fatal courage. They wrestle with whether good incentives or good people matter more, why lavish academic salaries may attract exactly the wrong scholars, and the moral lessons of marriage.
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