I think it&#x27;s enough that we have more &quot;known knowns&quot; now than 200 years ago.  We have an <i>insane</i> amount of knowledge that wasn&#x27;t available then.<p>We have neurology, neurochemistry, neuropsychology, etc. to help us understand human motivations and behaviors.<p>We have evolution to explain human origins, and evolutionary psychology, while very much in its early stages, to identify the origins of behaviors.<p>We have physics, materialism, and philosophy to suggest the lack of dualistic free will, which completely alters the way we should view crime and punishment.<p>And for the unknown unknowns, we have modern understandings of statistics and risk analysis coupled with the scientific method.  Bayes&#x27; theorem was developed before the founding of the USA[0], and yet still, 250 years later, is not well incorporated into law and political strategy.<p>So maybe what <i>really</i> drives people hasn&#x27;t changed, but our understanding thereof <i>really, really</i> has.  A lot.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bayes&#x27;_theorem#History" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bayes&#x27;_theorem#History</a>