an aristocratic class whose claim to high social status lay in the fact that they, or their ancestors, were warriors. The Greek word for “gentleman” was kaloskagathos, or “beautiful and good,” while the very word aristocracy derives from the Greek term “rule by the best.” These warriors were seen as morally different from shopkeepers because of their virtue: they were willing to risk their lives for the public good. Honor accrued only to people who deliberately rejected rational utility maximization—our modern economic model—in favor of those who were willing to risk the most important utility
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