Eh, I see what you mean, but I guess I differ in what I consider mental capacity and what is just a mental habit.
My experience with those kinds of otherwise capable rubes is that their incongruous opinions are all purely belief based, they eschew the rational processes they can apply in the rest of their lives because they would rather chose to cling to that particular belief like an emotional blanket. They're perfectly capable of having a better understanding of the world, they just chose to fight against it, and whilst they're free to make that choice they aren't as free from the implications of that as if they were truly mentally incompetent.
That or they don't believe it and know what they're espousing is false, but are doing it anyway for ulterior motives and benefits derived from playing with people's trust. Aka grifters and traitors, who doubly deserve no sympathy.
Yeah, I know they can't, but they test for competency in medicine that almost fundamentally requires a capacity to apply complex rational thought processes (although I suppose I certain kind of idiot savant could pass muster through an absurd amount of rote memorization). I contend that's a transferable ability.
If they don't apply that capacity to one particular aspect of their life that's a choice or a character flaw, not something they were incapable of. I.e. the MD was capable of understanding the societal harms he was an accomplice in, whether or not he even got so far as to actually look at it objectively is still a choice. And like all choices it's fair game to be judged for it.
Yeah, I know they can't, but they test for competency in medicine that almost fundamentally requires a capacity to apply complex rational thought processes (although I suppose I certain kind of idiot savant could pass muster through an absurd amount of rote memorization). I contend that's a transferable ability.
Eh, I see what you mean, but I guess I differ in what I consider mental capacity and what is just a mental habit.
My experience with those kinds of otherwise capable rubes is that their incongruous opinions are all purely belief based, they eschew the rational processes they can apply in the rest of their lives because they would rather chose to cling to that particular belief like an emotional blanket. They're perfectly capable of having a better understanding of the world, they just chose to fight against it, and whilst they're free to make that choice they aren't as free from the implications of that as if they were truly mentally incompetent.
That or they don't believe it and know what they're espousing is false, but are doing it anyway for ulterior motives and benefits derived from playing with people's trust. Aka grifters and traitors, who doubly deserve no sympathy.
I think you're spot on with the emotional blanket smothering rational processes. You can see how a medical board has no way to gatekeep that tendency.
Yeah, I know they can't, but they test for competency in medicine that almost fundamentally requires a capacity to apply complex rational thought processes (although I suppose I certain kind of idiot savant could pass muster through an absurd amount of rote memorization). I contend that's a transferable ability.
If they don't apply that capacity to one particular aspect of their life that's a choice or a character flaw, not something they were incapable of. I.e. the MD was capable of understanding the societal harms he was an accomplice in, whether or not he even got so far as to actually look at it objectively is still a choice. And like all choices it's fair game to be judged for it.
It is, but sometimes it doesn't transfer.