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Read the following passage, which uses quotations, paraphrases, and summaries from the source above. Highlight the appropriately used integration techniques in green, and highlight the inappropriately used integration techniques in yellow.
Capitalism is more than an economic system-it is, in many ways, a philosophical view of life, a belief in how people should act and how the world should be. Capitalism even spills over into ethical decisions, based on a theory called Moral Egoism. Emmett Barcalow introduces the concept of Moral Egoism in chapter four of the third edition of his textbook, Moral Philosophy, on page 71. He describes Moral Egoism as the belief that one should make moral decisions based on one's own self-interest. Moral Egoism allows for behavior as genuinely helpful and benign as eating well and staying fit—since you would do this to boost your personal health, which is in your self-interest—and as sinister as lying, cheating, stealing, and even murdering—since anyone could argue committing these crimes out of self-interest (Barcalow 71).

Barcalow states that Moral Egoism, in its most idealistic form, informs capitalism, alluding to the remarks of Adam Smith—"the intellectual godfather of capitalism, page 71." "When people pursue their own self-interest, he claimed, an unintended consequence is that everyone is better off, page 71." However, Barcalow disagrees that Moral Egoism can be completely justifiable in every instance. He points out that trying to claim that Moral Egoism benefits the greater good is in direct contrast to the ideals of Moral Egoism itself—that is, that actions should only be done in an individual's own self-interest, not on the off-chance that the action might help others. He also argues that the philosophy appears to put every decision in black-or-white terms, claiming that not every decision comes down to a choice between only one's self-interest and only the interest of others.(Barcalow 72).

I believe Barcalow makes a good point about this philosophical theory (Barcalow 72). Since capitalism has its roots in such a faulty and self-contradictory philosophy, we should reexamine how it functions as an economic system as well, and perhaps we will find gross inconsistencies in many of its ethical defenses.



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