Can the Law Educate? If so, how?

I received the following from a law student, and I think the student's profound questions go to the heart of our project at MOJ.  Can the law educate?  How can it educate?  How should it account for human weakness, sin, and the Fall?  I would hope that MOJ authors and readers of all political stripes will take a stab at an answer.

Here is the email:

I just got done reading this article by David Mamet (a playwright who uses the word "f--k" anytime he needs a syllable filled in) about his conversion from liberalism to conservativism.

Reading the article, the thing I'm struck by most is just how quietly reasonable the whole thing is. I mean, essentially what he says is that liberals are always forgetting that people are too fallen for government to do much since everyone seeks his or her self interest. Why should we not create a system in which each person pursuing his or her self interest (what they will do anyway) will create the best outcomes?

I actually kind of buy all of that. I do believe that that is how people will behave most of the time (if any one thing is plainly universal, it’s the fall). BUT a Thomistic view of the law is precisely that law SHOULD be a school (contra Mamet) and not just a marketplace; that it has a teaching mechanism about what is valuable and what is good; that this mechanism is invaluable in helping people to rise above this base self interest and become good.

So then, realizing that this is no small question, what to do? It seems wise to create a system that accounts for human beings acting as we know they will act (concupiscence dictates that, this side of paradise, we can count on this truth). But if that action is not the way people should act, is it good to create a system that relies on and glorifies this self-interest seeking? And is it good to sacrifice law's educational role in order to create a system that works relatively well? Do we expect people to act in accord with original sin, as Mamet suggests, or do we give opportunities for them to rise above it, realizing it may not happen at all?

A final note about how flawed our system of self interest is. I just got done reading a case for Business Associations about Henry Ford. Turns out Ford wasn't worried about profits, but really just wanted to make cars affordable, give people jobs at good wages, and get cars into every home. He got sued by his own shareholders for not seeking his own - and, as a result, their - interest. And they won, despite the fact that they were making tons of money anyway.

Anyway, this juxtaposition (knowing how people will act v. teaching them not to act that way) really struck me. And I'm not sure what to do with it. Any thoughts would be appreciated.