Secondly, I’m not sure the “soldier mindset” is really the right way to describe what a lawyer does anyway. A lawyer has to be able to defend someone well even when they might privately believe that they are guilty. The ability to do this well seems like it would require a “scout mindset” way of thinking, rather than a “soldier mindset” one.
I see “soldier mindset” being described as akin to “motivated thinking” (eg here), and I think it’s a stretch to say that a prosecution lawyer is not doing motivated thinking (in that trying to prove one thing true is their literal job).
And yeah, for the reasons that you stated, if you can’t trust people to be impartial (and people are not good at judging their own impartiality), setting up a system where multiple sides are represented by “soldier mindset” can legitimately be better at truth-seeking. Most episodes in scientific history have involved people who were really really motivated to prove that their particular theory was correct.
My real point, though, is that this “soldier vs scout” dichotomy is not the best wayto describe what makes scientific style thinking work. You can have a combination of both work just fine: what matters is whether your overall process is good at picking out truth and rejecting BS. And I do not think merely trying to be impartial and truthseeking is sufficient for this. “scout mindset” is not a bad thing to try, but it’s not enough.
I see “soldier mindset” being described as akin to “motivated thinking” (eg here), and I think it’s a stretch to say that a prosecution lawyer is not doing motivated thinking (in that trying to prove one thing true is their literal job).
And yeah, for the reasons that you stated, if you can’t trust people to be impartial (and people are not good at judging their own impartiality), setting up a system where multiple sides are represented by “soldier mindset” can legitimately be better at truth-seeking. Most episodes in scientific history have involved people who were really really motivated to prove that their particular theory was correct.
My real point, though, is that this “soldier vs scout” dichotomy is not the best way to describe what makes scientific style thinking work. You can have a combination of both work just fine: what matters is whether your overall process is good at picking out truth and rejecting BS. And I do not think merely trying to be impartial and truthseeking is sufficient for this. “scout mindset” is not a bad thing to try, but it’s not enough.