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Dec. 17, 2024
How To Build A Good Human
What makes a good human?
We receive prescriptions for virtuous morality from all manner of religions, philosophies, and intellectual traditions - but is human morality something that is taught and learned?
Guest on today’s episode, researcher and author Darcia Narvaez, does not think human morality has much to do with principles, or guidelines we’re taught, or lessons we learn.
Rather - that human morality is built - from a complex, interwoven, physical, neurobiological, sociocultural process that begins in our mother’s womb and continues throughout our life. A process that developed out of humanity’s millions-year-old evolution of child-rearing practices that made us the connected, cooperative, socially intelligent species we actually are - underneath the last few thousand years of trauma.
As a young academic, Darcia, driven by an intense feeling that there is something wrong with the way humans treat each other, turned to the study of human morality. In her years of research she took a multi-disciplinary approach to find answers, incorporating evolutionary biology, anthropology, developmental psychology, animal sciences, neuro-sciences.
Along the way, she published dozens of academic articles and twenty books, among them one titled Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom. Also, synthesizing her discoveries about what humans actually need to thrive, Darcia developed a new framework called The Evolved Nest, a blueprint of real-life practices that produce human beings with healthy, connected moralities.
In this hour Elle talks to Darcia about The Evolved Nest, about her research into human morality, how humanity got so lost, and how to cultivate and build back our species-normal compassionate nature.
Episode Links
Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom
Contact Us
Website: https://www.subjecttopower.com/
Instagram: @subject2power
Email us at subjecttopower@gmail.com
Credits
Host: Elle Kamihira
Produced by Elle Kamihira
Audio Engineering by Jason Sheesley at Abridged Audio
Cover Art by Bee Johnson
Music by Beware of Darkness
Darcia Narvaez, PhD
Multi-disciplinary Researcher & Author specializing in Human Morality, Child Development & Human Flourishing
Darcia Narvaez is Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, and Fellow of the American Psychological Association, American Educational Research Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Born in Minnesota, US, Darcia grew up living around the world as a bilingual/bicultural Puerto Rican-German American but calls Earth her home. Early careers include professional musician, business owner, music and Spanish teacher, and seminarian, among other endeavors.
Darcia uses an interdisciplinary approach to studying evolved morality, child development and human flourishing. Her most recent books include Restoring the Kinship Worldview, and The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children and Creating Connected Communities. Her book Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom won the 2015 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the 2017 Expanded Reason Award. Recent short films featuring Darcia’s research and her Evolved Nest initiative include Breaking the Cycle, The Evolved Nest, and Reimagining Humanity.