Are Humans Naturally Selfish? (Listener Question)

In this episode, Tanner answers a listener question from Wyatt Bennett: “What does Stoicism say about human nature? Are humans naturally selfish?” Exploring this through the Stoic concept of Oikeiôsis and the Circles of Concern, Tanner explains how our understanding of responsibilities expands as we mature. Starting from self-concern in infancy, we grow to care for family, friends, community, humanity, and even the planet. Tanner challenges Thomas Hobbes’ pessimistic view of human nature, offering a Stoic perspective that emphasizes the dynamic and evolving nature of human rationality and moral growth.
TAKEAWAYS
1. Stoicism sees human nature as dynamic, with our rational and moral concerns expanding over time.
2. Self-concern in early life is natural but not permanent; growth involves widening our circles of responsibility.
3. Nature’s alignment isn’t always pleasurable for individuals but serves a greater universal purpose.
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[@TheSzeder]

Hungarian listening to you on his morning commute in Scotland! For some reason I didn’t expect a beard😅 thank you for your work!

[@forgotabhi]

hey, watching you all the way from India for a year now. Just wanted to say thanks for amazing content. It helped me a lot and continue to do so. Also videos are a great addition!👍🏽

[@stoicismpod]

Thanks, man. Always blown away by the size of my India listener base and always as glad to hear from them :)

[@SenseiMidas]

kaisa hain bhai, tu kaha ka hain, main toh gujarat ka. nice to see you here

[@SenseiMidas]

@@stoicismpod is it nice to ask you what percentage of your audience is from india. Could you tell that. which is your biggest audience. and the most shocking audience like from greenland or faroe islands

[@stoicismpod]

@@SenseiMidas It's my 4th largest listenership :)

[@SenseiMidas]

mr campbell why did you remove your audio only playlist from this channel? now whenever i see that playlist in my downloads everything gets very janky and reaches to a point where i can t even watch the video. and to support you, would it best to watch the videos online or downloaded and on yt or on some other app. i would like to take your point in consideration. love you. i am a beginner; would it best for me to just watch as many lessons as possible or painfully slowly understand each lesson and integrate that into my life. Really slowly. Very. i hope you reply

[@stoicismpod]

Hey, I don't believe I did this. I did however stop publishing *new* audio-only episodes to KZbin. There are reasons for that decision (which were driven by smarter people than me) and one of those reasons was that the audio only content was hurting the performance of this channel. Backcatalogue audio only episodes may get pulled as well, in the future, but they'll always be available via RSS feed on any podcast player app you choose to use (and if you can't find it where you get podcasts, tell me and I'll add the RSS feed to it).