Using examples from the group activity, explain that as the world has become more complex, people have created laws and rules to fulfill different needs, and that following them is a way to promote both social stability and individual interests.
The world has become complex. In ancient times, people lived simply to survive, but as time went on, humans wanted more and more and tried to fulfill their desires. In the beginning, simple tools and knowledge were enough to get by, but as time went on, people needed more. With the development of technology, various social structures were created, and these developments enriched human life, but also complicated it. We now need different social institutions and systems not just for survival, but for a better life. In this process, the world has become endlessly complex, and many things are needed to keep it that way. Things like laws and rules.
Why do we have these laws and rules, and why do we follow them? Laws and rules aren’t just a way to control society, they’re a way to reduce conflict between people and keep the peace. People wanted different things, and if they went after what they wanted, they could harm others. As a result, societies began to use laws and rules to regulate people’s behavior and create an order that everyone could live with.
But does everyone in the world have to live by them? Isn’t it more beneficial to not follow them and survive? Ultimately, should people live right? We will try to answer this question through a group activity in a university. There are tons of courses at university, which means tons of tests, assignments, and presentations. However, one of the most avoided by students is group work, as evidenced by the recently trending phrase “I’ll take your name off the list!”. The reason why group activities are so difficult for students is because of “free riding”. Free-riding is the act of not participating in the group to the detriment of the other members.
When this happens, the rest of the students have to pick up the slack, which increases their workload. Due to the nature of group activities, you will be evaluated on a group basis, so you will be evaluated the same as the free rider. How can this free riding be eliminated? The solution I propose is to differentiate the evaluation within the group. Instead of giving everyone the same amount of credit, you can give different amounts of credit to different members of the group.
This would make it harder for people to get a free ride because they would have to contribute more to the activity than others in order to get a good grade. The reason for free riding is that other members of the group work harder than you and get better grades for their efforts, so if you are evaluated differently within the group, you cannot get good grades if you do not actively participate in the activity, so it is difficult to free ride.
However, there are a few things to consider with this approach. For differential evaluation to work, the criteria for evaluation must be clear and fair. Otherwise, it can cause dissatisfaction among members of the group, which can lead to conflict rather than cooperation. It’s also difficult for professors to keep track of every student’s contribution. To compensate for this, I think it would be good to have a private group evaluation after the group activity is over.
In this way, my proposal would allow students who participate in group activities to improve their own grades while also improving the overall evaluation of the group. If we apply this to society, it can be said that if you live by the rules and laws of society, such as tacit agreement to actively participate in group activities, you will not only benefit society, but also benefit yourself. If people live by the laws and rules of society, society will be stable, because the laws and rules set the boundaries within which people can pursue what they want and not harm each other in the process. If people pursue what they want within the boundaries of the law, society is well maintained because they do not harm others, and if they achieve what they want within a stable society, they will eventually benefit themselves.
In a chaotic society where laws and rules are not followed, you may not be able to pursue your ideals, and you may end up harming yourself. This further emphasizes the importance of following laws and rules. By following laws and rules, we can protect not only our own interests, but also the interests of society as a whole.
The repetition-reciprocity hypothesis states that people will give to people they encounter repeatedly, even at their own detriment, because it increases the likelihood that the person will give to them in the long run, thus increasing their own survival rate and ultimately benefiting them. The analogy to society is that by obeying the laws and rules of society, or in other words, living right, you encourage others to do the same, and society becomes more stable and everyone is happier.
To summarize, laws and rules were created to maintain an increasingly complex society. These rules were created to ensure that different people’s needs are met without harming others, and people recognize that following these laws and rules makes society more stable. Furthermore, they know that a stable society allows them to realize their ideals. Therefore, people have come to live by these laws, which is to say, the right life, and we have a stable society.
