perfectibility

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the capacity to improve progressively, especially toward moral, intellectual, or social excellence

   The reformer defended the perfectibility of human institutions through education.

2. 2
   noun

   the doctrine or belief that human beings or society can be improved indefinitely

   Enlightenment faith in perfectibility shaped the philosopher's program of universal education.

Borrowed from French perfectibilite, formed from perfectible + -ite ('-ity'). In Enlightenment thought it became a technical name for the human capacity, or supposed capacity, for indefinite moral and social improvement.

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