I think your ācriminal trialā counter-example to the āscout mindsetā narrative is really interesting.
Iām not convinced it quite holds up though, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I think thereās two separate questions which youāre conflating:
How can someone, as an individual, best form accurate opinions about something?
How can we design a process which will reliably lead to accurate decisions being made about contentious issues? And how can we design it so that those decisions will be broadly be trusted by the public?
These questions are similar, but not the same. In (1), there is not a trust problem. You know your own mind, and you know that you are sincerely committed to finding out what the truth is, whatever that might be. But in (2), we are designing some process that will be followed by people in positions of power. We have to be worried about the possibility that those people might be corrupt. Trust is a much bigger issue.
Iād have thought that the reason criminal trials are designed the way they are is related to this issue of trust, rather than because the criminal trial setup is an inherently good way of reaching the truth. In an ideal world filled with perfect people, maybe weād let an impartial judge adopt a scout mindset, assess all the evidence in a case, and reach a decision. But in the real world, this would create unacceptable opportunities for corruption and abuse of power. We then tackle the risk that one of the people involved might be approaching the problem with a soldier mindset, by guaranteeing that they are, but also making sure that there are people doing this on both sides.
Secondly, Iām not sure the āsoldier mindsetā 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 āscout mindsetā way of thinking, rather than a āsoldier mindsetā one.
Secondly, Iām not sure the āsoldier mindsetā 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 āscout mindsetā way of thinking, rather than a āsoldier mindsetā one.
I see āsoldier mindsetā being described as akin to āmotivated thinkingā (eg here), and I think itās 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 canāt 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 āsoldier mindsetā 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 āsoldier vs scoutā 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. āscout mindsetā is not a bad thing to try, but itās not enough.
I think your ācriminal trialā counter-example to the āscout mindsetā narrative is really interesting.
Iām not convinced it quite holds up though, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I think thereās two separate questions which youāre conflating:
How can someone, as an individual, best form accurate opinions about something?
How can we design a process which will reliably lead to accurate decisions being made about contentious issues? And how can we design it so that those decisions will be broadly be trusted by the public?
These questions are similar, but not the same. In (1), there is not a trust problem. You know your own mind, and you know that you are sincerely committed to finding out what the truth is, whatever that might be. But in (2), we are designing some process that will be followed by people in positions of power. We have to be worried about the possibility that those people might be corrupt. Trust is a much bigger issue.
Iād have thought that the reason criminal trials are designed the way they are is related to this issue of trust, rather than because the criminal trial setup is an inherently good way of reaching the truth. In an ideal world filled with perfect people, maybe weād let an impartial judge adopt a scout mindset, assess all the evidence in a case, and reach a decision. But in the real world, this would create unacceptable opportunities for corruption and abuse of power. We then tackle the risk that one of the people involved might be approaching the problem with a soldier mindset, by guaranteeing that they are, but also making sure that there are people doing this on both sides.
Secondly, Iām not sure the āsoldier mindsetā 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 āscout mindsetā way of thinking, rather than a āsoldier mindsetā one.
I see āsoldier mindsetā being described as akin to āmotivated thinkingā (eg here), and I think itās 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 canāt 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 āsoldier mindsetā 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 āsoldier vs scoutā 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. āscout mindsetā is not a bad thing to try, but itās not enough.