The Mattering Instinct (with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein)

Philosopher and author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein discusses her new book, The Mattering Instinct , which argues that our lives are a quest to validate our inherent self-centeredness. Tracing this essential longing from physics and biology through to ethics and politics, she explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts why material success alone can never satisfy our deep-seated need to matter. She describes the four ways people seek significance--through transcendence, social connection, excellence, or competition--and explains how the unmet need to matter is at the heart of some of the biggest problems afflicting modern societies: loneliness, extremism, and polarization.

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The Mattering Instinct (with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein) is an episode from EconTalk by Library of Economics and Liberty.

This episode is 01:05:26 long.

This episode was published on Jan 12, 2026.

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