How We Tamed Ourselves and Invented Good and Evil (with Hanno Sauer)

2026-03-09 · 74 min · episode 1040 · 18 entities

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→ appeared on EconTalk podcast

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evidence rules-v4
How We Tamed Ourselves and Invented Good and Evil (with Hanno Sauer)
→ hosted by Russ Roberts person

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Feed author/publisher: Russ Roberts
→ hosted by Library of Economics and Liberty person

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Feed author/publisher: Library of Economics and Liberty
→ discusses Society & Culture concept

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→ discusses Science concept

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→ discusses Philosophy concept

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Feed category: Philosophy
→ discusses Education concept

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→ discusses Courses concept

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→ discusses Social Sciences concept

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Feed category: Social Sciences

Entities found in this episode

concepts 12

mentioned Society & Culture concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Society & Culture
mentioned Science concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
mentioned Philosophy concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Philosophy
mentioned Education concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Education
mentioned Courses concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Courses
mentioned Social Sciences concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Social Sciences
discusses Society & Culture concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Society & Culture
discusses Science concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
discusses Philosophy concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Philosophy
discusses Education concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Education
discusses Courses concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Courses
discusses Social Sciences concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Social Sciences

persons 5

mentioned Hanno Sauer person

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evidence rules-v4
How We Tamed Ourselves and Invented Good and Evil (with Hanno Sauer)
mentioned Russ Roberts person

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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Russ Roberts
mentioned Library of Economics and Liberty person

0.70

evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Library of Economics and Liberty
hosted by Russ Roberts person

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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Russ Roberts
hosted by Library of Economics and Liberty person

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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Library of Economics and Liberty

podcasts 1

appeared on EconTalk podcast

0.68

evidence rules-v4
How We Tamed Ourselves and Invented Good and Evil (with Hanno Sauer)

Episode description as stored

What if humanity's capacity for cruelty was actually one of our greatest moral achievements? That's just one of the provocative ideas philosopher Hanno Sauer explores in this conversation about his book The Invention of Good and Evil with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Sauer tackles a fundamental puzzle: in a Darwinian world of selfish genes, how did humans become so extraordinarily cooperative? Sauer traces a fascinating journey from small hunter-gatherer bands to modern civilizations, revealing surprising mechanisms along the way--including the systematic killing of the most aggressive tribe members over millennia, which made humans the "golden retrievers of the primate kingdom." The conversation ranges from whether agriculture was history's worst mistake, to a spirited debate about religion and morality between Sauer (a German atheist who doesn't know any believers) and host Russ Roberts (a person of faith living in Israel).