Week 9 - Premise

For the most part I do believe in all three premises; mutability, perfectibility and rationality but only to certain extents for each.

The rationality premise comes from many American institutions and I do think that the average person is more than capable of making a good decision but that all depends on how this person was raised. If this person grew up in a household where an eye for an eye is the way life should be, then how would this person make a good decision as a judge when deciding if someone should go to jail or die for committing murder? In that example, this particular individual will have a bias for killing the convicted felon because of the way he/she grew up. Not everyone is as open minded as they should be so some decisions might not be as good to make. This premise should focus more on college graduates or college students rather than "any average person."

The prefectibility premise comes from the old Puritan idea that humans are born in sin but are capable of achieving goodness through effort and control. For this premise I do fully believe this. It does not matter who you are or what you have done, if you want to change you can. The only exception is if the individual has some sort of a mental disorder. Other than that extreme circumstance, I feel that people who want to change can change and that there is no such thing as having "no choice."

The mutability premise comes from universal education all around. This premise assumes that human behavior is shaped by environmental factors and in order to improve we must do so to their mental and physical circumstances. I feel that we do not have to change physical and psychological circumstances to improve. There are times when improving someone will only require a mental adjustment or inversely just a physical adjustment. If someone grows up as a farmer but is really overweight, it will be hard for this person to perform his/her job without being too tired, especially with limited mobility. In terms of the mental part, this farmer already knows all there is to know about the job, he/she just might not be able to do it effectively or at all die to his/her limitation in movement. Dropping some weight should do the trick for this farmer. If someone in grade school were to sleep over at a friend's house but the person who is sleeping over is not used to his/her friend's customs in the home, he/she has to make the mental adjustment only.

I do feel that these premise are very interesting to read and to some extent are correct, but in actuality, we all know that what everything comes down to is whether or not the individual has the capability to perform or think at a certain level.