I chose to study economics (in graduate school) because I wanted to make the world better, and I discovered that the non-economists I studied from as an undergrad (in "development studies") were less convincing than the economists they critiqued.

One of the main goals of economics is to provide advise for government policy to make society better off (by some average of human well-being). I would say it takes more spirit to choose the discipline than can and does do this, than to fall for shallow critiques from outside the discipline.