This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Liberty as a political value allows people in civil society to discover and cultivate their character.

Ah, but without people of character, liberty cannot persist.

That from Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education,

we talk today about the relative values of character education and

appreciation for a free society.

You make a big push on behalf of character education within the libertarian movement and it's so much so

you're well-known among libertarians seven principles of sound public policy you've

changed the last one from Liberty makes all the difference

to Character makes all the difference.

So why is Character such an important principle when it comes to public policy?

I don't think of people of unsound character, people who don't practice such virtues

as honesty, intellectual humility, courage, patience, responsibility, and so forth.

I don't think people who lack those virtues can possibly make good policy.

And so many of the poor policies that we've put in place for which we're paying an awful price

in many forms are the direct result of the erosion of character or the lack of considering the impact on character that such policies have.

So I think liberty and character are really two sides of the same coin.

All right, so is that it seems to me then that that is at best sort of a chicken and egg problem because

you know Adam Smith wrote about how we treat each other we don't just want to be loved, we want to be lovely. And he sort of turned sort of pop

morality on its head. You know, like I say tell people that theory of moral sentiments if it were released today

would be a very popular pop morality book because it doesn't say here's why you should be kind it says why are we kind why are we

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