S15 E3 What Drives Every Human Decision You've Ever Made, with MacArthur Genius Rebecca Goldstein

About this episode

In this episode of FOMO Sapiens, Patrick McGinnis sits down with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, MacArthur Fellow, National Medal of the Humanities recipient, and author of the new book The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us (Liveright, 2026), for one of the most philosophically rich conversations the show has had. Rebecca holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Princeton, has taught at Yale, Columbia, NYU, Dartmouth, and Harvard, and has spent more than 40 years developing a theory she calls the mattering instinct: the universal human drive to prove to ourselves that we genuinely deserve the attention we give ourselves. Her argument is that this single instinct is the source of our species' greatest achievements and deepest atrocities, that it explains depression, tribalism, religious belief, entrepreneurship, and the need for love, and that understanding where you sit on what she calls the mattering map is one of the most clarifying things you can do for your own life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices