I’m inclined to disagree with your reasoning. The sort of training I described will not significantly improve the toolkit available to the sorts of people who become lawyers, any more than improving grade-school math education will significantly improve the toolkit of accountants. But it might significantly improve the toolkit available to average people, and thus to average jurors, and might thereby change the sorts of arguments that are effective in courtrooms. Ideally, it leads to an arrangement where truth-preserving arguments are more effective than they are now, and therefore get used more, which seems as good an operational definition of using “rational techniques to arrive at correct decisions on guilt” as I expect to get while still keeping randomly selected humans involved. (I more or less endorse the use of randomly selected humans, as a way to avoid regulatory capture, though it’s hard to say whether regulatory capture would be worse than the foolishness of juries.)
That said, I mostly agree with your conclusion: it probably wouldn’t work, though not for the reason you describe. To keep your martial analogy, I think the result would be similar to that of instituting formal calisthenics programs in grade school in the hopes of improving the quality of our soldiers.
I see. If this critical-thinking curriculum raised the fallacy/bias-spotting abilities of ordinary folks, and did not raise the sophism-spinning abilities of lawyers, then the jurors’ abilities would rise relative to the lawyers’, which would improve juries’ chances of reaching the correct verdict. I think I agree with this.
But why should we assume that lawyes’ abilities will not rise as well? You write that this training would not “significantly improve the toolkit available to the sorts of people who become lawyers.” But surely lawyers will play to their audience, and learn to present whatever fallacies the jurors will be susceptible to.
Thus I agree that such training might “change the sorts of arguments that are effective in courtrooms,” but I don’t think it would improve outcomes more.
it probably wouldn’t work, though not for the reason you describe
But why should we assume that lawyes’ abilities will not rise as well?
I expect that the sorts of people who become lawyers today are already better acquainted with critical thinking techniques than the sorts of people who become jurors. Also, I expect an across-the-board training curriculum for subject X to have more of an impact on people who know little about X than it does on people who know a lot about X—that is, I expect it to raise the floor more than the ceiling.
Therefore, I expect an across-the-board critical thinking curriculum to reduce the difference between a typical lawyer’s abilities and a typical juror’s abilities in areas related to critical thinking. If you raise the floor more than the ceiling, average height differences tend to decrease.
But surely lawyers will play to their audience, and learn to present whatever fallacies the jurors will be susceptible to.
Sure, but again, I don’t expect them to be able to improve enough to maintain the same proportional superiority to jurors, for essentially the same reason that ten years of additional life experience sharply reduces the cognitive advantages that a typical 25-year-old has over a typical 15-year-old.
Also, if juries were sufficiently trained in critical thinking, then lawyers who actually had the facts on their side would eventually find that presenting the actual facts, and pointing out the fallacies in their opponents’ arguments, would be a viable strategy. (Right now, I doubt that it is for most juries.) In other words, the more effective the jury is at distinguishing truth from falsehood, the more of an advantage the truth is to a lawyer.
Why do you think it wouldn’t work?
Sorry; I thought my analogy was clearer than it was. I expect it not to work because there just isn’t enough leverage between the place we’d be exerting the effort (classrooms) and the place where we’d be expecting the results (courtroom), much as with grade school calisthenics and soldiers. That is, I don’t actually anticipate the kind of increase in critical thinking skill among jurors I’m discussing here based on the kind of curriculum I’m discussing here, any more than I expect a typical thirty-year-old to know how to factor a polynomial expression or diagram a sentence.
I’m inclined to disagree with your reasoning. The sort of training I described will not significantly improve the toolkit available to the sorts of people who become lawyers, any more than improving grade-school math education will significantly improve the toolkit of accountants. But it might significantly improve the toolkit available to average people, and thus to average jurors, and might thereby change the sorts of arguments that are effective in courtrooms. Ideally, it leads to an arrangement where truth-preserving arguments are more effective than they are now, and therefore get used more, which seems as good an operational definition of using “rational techniques to arrive at correct decisions on guilt” as I expect to get while still keeping randomly selected humans involved. (I more or less endorse the use of randomly selected humans, as a way to avoid regulatory capture, though it’s hard to say whether regulatory capture would be worse than the foolishness of juries.)
That said, I mostly agree with your conclusion: it probably wouldn’t work, though not for the reason you describe. To keep your martial analogy, I think the result would be similar to that of instituting formal calisthenics programs in grade school in the hopes of improving the quality of our soldiers.
I see. If this critical-thinking curriculum raised the fallacy/bias-spotting abilities of ordinary folks, and did not raise the sophism-spinning abilities of lawyers, then the jurors’ abilities would rise relative to the lawyers’, which would improve juries’ chances of reaching the correct verdict. I think I agree with this.
But why should we assume that lawyes’ abilities will not rise as well? You write that this training would not “significantly improve the toolkit available to the sorts of people who become lawyers.” But surely lawyers will play to their audience, and learn to present whatever fallacies the jurors will be susceptible to.
Thus I agree that such training might “change the sorts of arguments that are effective in courtrooms,” but I don’t think it would improve outcomes more.
Why do you think it wouldn’t work?
I expect that the sorts of people who become lawyers today are already better acquainted with critical thinking techniques than the sorts of people who become jurors. Also, I expect an across-the-board training curriculum for subject X to have more of an impact on people who know little about X than it does on people who know a lot about X—that is, I expect it to raise the floor more than the ceiling.
Therefore, I expect an across-the-board critical thinking curriculum to reduce the difference between a typical lawyer’s abilities and a typical juror’s abilities in areas related to critical thinking. If you raise the floor more than the ceiling, average height differences tend to decrease.
Sure, but again, I don’t expect them to be able to improve enough to maintain the same proportional superiority to jurors, for essentially the same reason that ten years of additional life experience sharply reduces the cognitive advantages that a typical 25-year-old has over a typical 15-year-old.
Also, if juries were sufficiently trained in critical thinking, then lawyers who actually had the facts on their side would eventually find that presenting the actual facts, and pointing out the fallacies in their opponents’ arguments, would be a viable strategy. (Right now, I doubt that it is for most juries.) In other words, the more effective the jury is at distinguishing truth from falsehood, the more of an advantage the truth is to a lawyer.
Sorry; I thought my analogy was clearer than it was. I expect it not to work because there just isn’t enough leverage between the place we’d be exerting the effort (classrooms) and the place where we’d be expecting the results (courtroom), much as with grade school calisthenics and soldiers. That is, I don’t actually anticipate the kind of increase in critical thinking skill among jurors I’m discussing here based on the kind of curriculum I’m discussing here, any more than I expect a typical thirty-year-old to know how to factor a polynomial expression or diagram a sentence.
I’d love to be wrong, though.