Wk 9.2 Rationality, Perfectibility and Mutuality Premises

I can believe in rationality and mutability practice, but I think that rather than believing in the actual premise of perfectibility where people are innately evil at birth, I would think along the lines of being born neutral and doing good things and behaving with effort and control, we can be good or “redeem” ourselves for the bad things that we may have done.

In terms of social institutions and practices based on the three premises, for the perfectibility premise, with this belief that people are born evil but can redeem themselves by putting the effort and control, there is the idea of using community service as a part of a convicted sentence, equaling to a way to repay to society for one’s crime, creation and enforcement of laws (prohibitions, limits) and religion.

The social institutions and practices that are based on the rationality premise, the belief of the capability of discovering the truth through logical analysis include the areas of government, law and economics, as well as seen within free enterprise, investigative/enforcement services, individual rights that include the right to vote and free speech, and trials by jury.

The mutability premise states that human behavior is shaped by environmental factors, and the social institutions and practices that are based on this idea include the idea of universal education, child and social services, desire of universal health care, services from community service centers and such.