Is virtue a matter of taste, and thus outside the range of economic reasoning? Inspired by Stigler and Becker’s “De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum” (“there is no disputing tastes”), this article develops a simple rational choice model in the manner of Becker in which virtue serves as a form of human capital, thereby allowing virtue to situate itself within the model as a tool rather than taste, and as a means of applying the economic way of thinking to aspects of life typically regarded as either off limits to it or too fragile to withstand its probing.
Russell Dabbs, "Virtue Non Est Disputandum?" Jorunal of Markets & Morality 24, no. 2 (2021): 289-307.