EconTalk How We Tamed Ourselves and Invented Good and Evil (with Hanno Sauer)
53 snips
Mar 9, 2026 
Hanno Sauer, philosopher and author of The Invention of Good and Evil, studies moral evolution and cultural history. He explores how large-scale cooperation arose, the idea of self-domestication via selection against aggression, the role of religion and reputation in sustaining norms, and how agriculture and urban life reshaped morality and society.
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Humans Scale Cooperation With Flexible Institutions
- Humans uniquely scale cooperation from small bands to societies of billions using flexible institutions and norms.
- Sauer emphasizes plasticity: humans can live in tiny hunter-gatherer groups or globalized trade networks using different social toolkits.
Punishment Drove Human Self Domestication
- Social sanctions and punishment were crucial to stabilize cooperation as groups grew larger.
- Sauer argues this enforcement contributed to human self-domestication, reducing impulsive aggression across generations.
Raids Explain In-Group Pacifism and Out-Group Violence
- Sauer contrasts internal docility with external violence: in-group selection against aggressors vs. coordinated out-group raids.
- He uses raids and hunting analogies to explain how violent cooperation shaped genes and norms differently for in-group and out-group.
