Should Persons With Mental Disabilities Be Allowed to Vote
I currently live in England and recently I was very surprised to learn that in 2006 an Electoral Administration Act was passed which abolished the law that had not allowed people with certain mental deficiencies to vote.
Thus, the "mentally disabled" are now able to participate in the electoral process. The term "mentally disabled" includes adults with Intellectual Deficiency Disorders (IDD) like Down Syndrome and what was referred to by psychiatrists in the past as Mental Retardation; it also includes those whose cognitive abilities are materially impaired such as persons with schizophrenia or some other form of psychotic disorder. In the UK, even persons who are detained in mental institutes are granted permission a right to temporarily leave the hospital in order to vote in person or post by proxy.
I cannot understand why such persons should be granted the right to vote. What possible arguments could there be for extending suffrage to adults who lack a normal capacity for rational thought?
Regards
Dachshund
Thus, the "mentally disabled" are now able to participate in the electoral process. The term "mentally disabled" includes adults with Intellectual Deficiency Disorders (IDD) like Down Syndrome and what was referred to by psychiatrists in the past as Mental Retardation; it also includes those whose cognitive abilities are materially impaired such as persons with schizophrenia or some other form of psychotic disorder. In the UK, even persons who are detained in mental institutes are granted permission a right to temporarily leave the hospital in order to vote in person or post by proxy.
I cannot understand why such persons should be granted the right to vote. What possible arguments could there be for extending suffrage to adults who lack a normal capacity for rational thought?
Regards
Dachshund
Comments (138)
But we know what's best for you better than you do.
The only downside is that we probably do not care about it as much as you do, or indeed at all.
:love:
No, we will call you sexist and ban you. :hearts:
You aren't alone MP, Immanual Kant - the greatest of the Enlightenment era's philosophers - firmly believed that women should never be allowed to vote; basically because - (and there's no way to put this diplomatically, I'm afraid) - he felt that they were just too stupid (irrational) ! :wink: Actually quite a few great philosophers would have run foul of the "Mod Squad" and been banned from this forum for sexism if it had have been operating in their time, like Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant, Aristotle ... (?!) :gasp:
This is from Wikipedia:
The word incompetent is used to describe persons who should not undergo certain judicial processes, and also for those who lack mental capacity to make contracts, handle their financial and other personal matters such as consenting to medical treatment, etc. and need a legal guardian to handle their affairs.
I think it would make sense to prevent someone who met this standard for incompetence from voting. Otherwise, they should be allowed to vote. As for "normal capacity for rational thought," well, that type language gets thrown around on this forum a lot meaning people who are not as enlightened as we are. You know, Republicans. Yes, irony.
That's right, Mr Clark. There's no doubt that Donald Trump, for example, is a very "clever cookie" - the best President the US has, IMO, ever had ! What did you think of his speech today to the CPAC?! :razz: U-S-A !! U-S-A !! :up:
Regards
Dachshund
I thought it was obvious that they were voting in very large numbers. How else did Donald Trump get elected?
That's arse about. Why should they not have the right to vote?
It depends on how one defines "mental disability" and who defines it.
If voting can conclude the answer, yes, we can vote. However voting by its own method only tells how many people supports a view and how many does not. Voting "does not" give a answer right or wrong.
Since it is quite difficult to filter precisely the above criteria, just go by a cut-off age number presuming the kids don't understand the purpose/ implication of voting
Having said that, voting is only a way to find out what maximum people want, irrespective of whether it is right or wrong, good or bad.
You might want to dig deeper into your own laws before assuming that it is so simple. s73 of the Electoral Administrative Act 2006 simply abolishes an 18th century legal distinction for 'lunatics' and renders the claim of mental incapacity impotent in regards to voting capacity. Additionnally, the notes for s73 states that it makes important changes to the 1983 Commission on Mental Incapacity document, the preceding legal omnium on the matter, not that it completely invalidates it. Meaning some of its provisions in regards to legal capacity unrelated to mental acuity (like the ones in regards to the im/possibility of communication) will likely still stands. Otherwise the notes would simply mention that the 1983 document had been entirely invalidated. I'll go this far, but the 1983 Commission document is 300 pages long, and you ain't paying me for this. :joke:
BTW, someone who has no rational capacity whatsoever will almost assuredly be under full legal curatorship. Meaning he still won't get to vote.
And we wonder why youth are disaffected?
So it points to what should be the basic criteria for having voting rights:
1) No filtration irrespective of education, sex, colour, age.
2) If it is felt that all cannot contribute, then who can? what would be the ideal filtration criteria in democracy.
All has limitations.
-Education: If that is the criteria, should it be more degrees/ certificates will have more voting right. If not what is the cut-off line of stage of education?
-Sex and Colour: Keeping is out of this argument
-Age: Simplest of all, easy to track. For some mental age can be less, but how can that be distinguised from less-educated, trouble is we do not know what is the ideal cut-off age. Hence it is easy to go by definition of adulthood in respective nation-states
Everyone below an IQ of 125 should be made, by law, to give their voting rights over to a friend who has at least that IQ, and those without friends of at least 125 IQ will have their votes assigned randomly to positions. Since they're basically monkeys throwing shit at the wall anyway.
nah, children are considered "rational" "legally" from the moment they can be expected to understand that bad = no and good = yes, and that "x is bad is an instruction to be followed, basically. Before, the standard was 7 years old, which is where the "age of reason" expression comes from. Nowadays this is much lower than this, and 4-5 years old can be found "rational" in the eyes of the court.
i don't think so. An incapacitous 35 year old is not a child.
The UNCRPD section 12 distinguishes mental capacity from legal capacity, saying (in other words) that the lack of mental capacity shall not be grounds to remove legal capacity. So far only the Republic of Ireland is fully compliant with section 12 (in Europe anyway, not sure about elsewhere).
Th acquisition of legal capacity is a recognition of adulthood, regardless of how well people understand the world they live in. Being non-disabled is no bar to being an ignorant vote-savaging twat in any case. I'd happily be ruled by a bunch of bipolar people.
It is of vital importance that every adult feels they have a stake in society and that none are excluded for arbitrary reasons.
And thus it should be with only in the most extreme circumstances that a person is forbidden by law.
I see no reason why anyone would object to allowing people with 'mental disabilities' to vote.
Any one capable of first registering, then making the effort to find the polling station, and selecting a candidate has sufficient ability to discriminate in the choice of a candidate. The chances of negative consequences occurring by the exercise of this right are near impossible. So few vote for the "Monster Raving Loony Party" that they shall never have a successful candidate.
This is completely a non-question, as the benefits outweigh any negative effects.
The law as it was, is not enforceable in an open society. And such a law is danger to democracy.
The implication being that no one should be allowed to vote?
Should every single person be screened for IQ level just before voting. A person under drug or alcohol before voting can have lower reasoning or unintended reasoning. This the person might not contribute effectively.
How do one assess the IQ value for all persons.
What is the definition of success and failure?
I will take it as an example what you feel is success or failure.
Communism collapsed in many places. Why do you say democracy is a failure and communism a success.
I think it is a trial and error method of systems which people at different places and time are trying out what suits best and it is a spontaneous process, so the people themselves are not consciously selecting a system. Somewhat similar to Aristotle's concept of politics.
A tad off-topic, tho. :wink:
That you have given a fairly clear definition of success and failure (to achieve equality/inequality), it is not proven that communism is a success or it being a superior ideology.
We prefer a dynamic relationship, so it depends on who spoke their safeword last. :halo:
The deep seeded misogyny was ever-present during those days, unfortunately, considering the strong ties to provincialism and dogma vis-a-vis moral philosophy until our contemporary social and cultural transformation. Women were viewed as objects who were reared from birth to consider themselves as objects, remained uneducated and formed meaning through marriage and birth to children. We cannot apply Kantian moral reasoning to animals and for Kant and many men, women are no different to animals despite the fact that such ignorance stemmed from cultural and social limitations, restrictions and paternalism.
However, while these philosophers are great, perhaps a peek into their personal lives can exemplify why they had such issues with women. Whatever the case is, Kantian axiom that love and respect between two friends is the height of rational thinking and a productive will, we can therefore assume that women are more than capable of being rational. Any other suggestions are a product of ignorance or personal disdain and misogyny.
Of course they should. We wouldn't want to get our lovely ballots spit stained by those drooling retards.
So are you saying they do not contribute to the society and probably won't in near future. So they are not required in society. Will it also conclude that they should be eliminated from the society otherwise they will consume useful resources??
Yes of course, the degenerates.
So what is the proposed method of elimination-remove them at birth? or later, when a group of people realise that they don't contribute to society?
Also how will the remaining "good" and "efficient" people take the community forward
Sarcasm doesn't transfer very well to strangers over the internet does it? :(
Quoting Dachshund
International laws including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability for which the UK ratified back in 2009 endeavours to promote and respect the inherent dignity of all persons with a disability along with their active participation in society. This includes their legal capacity on an equal basis. This is a fantastic shift in our attitude towards human rights and persons with a disability because they have become accepted subjects with inalienable rights. While their cognitive capacity and their ability to make active decisions is called into question, there are considerable measures and clinical techniques that can ascertain their decision-making process and provide suitable methods to instruct and educate so that they can make informed choices and decisions.
Discrimination against persons with a disability remains very strong in our society and social stigma continues to present difficulties. During Nazism, they committed the atrocious Aktion T4 and eugenics was world-wide as people with a disability were perceived as "defective". In Australia, for instance, we had the Mental Hygiene Act 1933 that allowed "mental defectives" to be placed in private institutions that was later defined as: "Mental defectiveness means a condition of arrested or incomplete development of mind existing from birth or from an early age whether arising from inherent causes or induced by disease or injury and of such a kind as to render the person affected incapable of adjusting himself to his social environments and as to necessitate external care, supervision or control of such person." It was also not uncommon for words such as imbecile, lunatic, and idiot to be used as descriptions of intellectual disability and mental illness.
Forced sterilisations - of which I am very vocal against - continue until this day against women who have an intellectual disability and even further still occasionally racially targeted. This is disgusting abuse against those with disabilities.The problem is NOT those with disabilities but us as a society and the social stigma that continues. The questions that we should be asking is how we can ascertain the clinical parameter that can provide us with an individual, case-by-case assessment of cognitive capacity viz., persons with a disability and the diagnostic process or threshold must respectfully be devoid any conventional values by taking a functional approach during assessment - which is an analysis of understanding the action and also the consequences of that action - and by understanding the nature and effects of a decision.
Being capable of signing a contract, providing consent for sexual intercourse, and voting is not simply about doing those things, but understanding the broader consequences and persons with a disability - as active citizens in our society - must be educated, albeit differently, in order to enable them the capacity to understand and lead independent lives. If we continue favouring social stigma and avoid assisting them toward more informed choices, we are modelling a society of discrimination and exclusion.
Which techniques are you referring to here, do you have any references to hand?
Emoticons are cheating. Also, nice post.
You can have a read here for some further information.
Great, thanks.
Interesting, it sounds to me like they're using a barely modified version of the MacCAT-CR tests. If so, I'm sure they help here, but with interesting consequences. It has been demonstrated, for example, that children above the age of 11.2yrs consistently pass this test.
https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-015-0067-z
If a set of people are not allowed to participate in activities (eg. voting) which other human beings have formulated, what will be the functions of the people. In all certainty, they will be left to be exploited.
Definitely this was NOT meant to be sarcasm. It points towards what is the purpose of living, if there is any.
Although I see from reading later posts that you are being ironic, I thought this would be of interest. It is a purported literacy test for voting from the State of Louisiana in the US from the 1960s used to prevent black people from voting. I can not vouch for its authenticity:
On a philosophical basis I agree, although I might say "evil" rather than "cheating." But for smarty pants such as some of us are, it can lead to misunderstandings.
The irony did have a purpose, it was an attempt to get anyone who thought removing voting rights from the disabled, or making them conditional, to think of themselves as the other - subject to the restrictions. Some of the questions on that literacy test are, ironically, very poorly worded.
'Cross out the number necessary, when making the number below one million' really? Paragons of clarity and precision!
I take it you voted for "crooked Hillary", the crazy feminist, Sapientia ? Now that's what I call retarded ! (or was it "Red Bernie", the dotty old clown who still doesn't realise why the Berlin Wall was pulled down in 1989)
Either way, it provides a good case for why, IMO, Americans should have to pass a mandatory general mental competence test before they are granted the right to vote.
Regards
Dachshund
Wrong. I didn't vote for anyone, because I wasn't eligible to vote, because I'm not - and have never been - a citizen of the United States. Now, the question is, what kind of person would jump to such a conclusion, and what are their chances of passing a mental competence test?
You misunderstood me. I thought you were being ironic because you set the standard so low. 125! That might even even let [deleted] vote, but certainly not [deleted]. [Notice - this is an ironic statement.]
125's quite above average. About 1 in 20. It's easy to forget differences in the kind of intelligence IQ measures if you're in a career like engineering, programming etc etc where people are very likely to have significantly above average speed/competence with IQ test style questions.
I said, " I take it (i.e. I assume) that you voted for "Crooked Hillary, the crazy feminist ? (Question mark). That is, I asked you whether or not this was true. I did not conclude anything. :wink:
Of course - 100 is the average by definition. In my experience of people in everyday life, apparent IQ level does not have a high correlation with competence, maturity, compassion, or responsibility.
Dear Francis,,
I'm sorry, my friend, but what you are saying is simply false. Modern standardised IQ tests reliably and accurately measure what psychometricians refer to as "g-factor" - the "general (fluid) intelligence factor"; and G-factor, BTW is not an abstract or man-manufactured (factitious) social construct, it is a REAL, "biological" phenomenon thatexists in the real natural world. "G-factor" is closely related to the notion of "executive functioning" in neuropsychology, and executive functioning is a meta-construct that describes the unified operation of a number higher cognitive, rational mental processes, such as those that are involved in tasks like problem-solving, analysis/synthesis deliberation and judgement, etc. Healthy, normal (unimpaired) EF is also the means by which adults acquire the capacity for competent self-regulation/control, and the exercise of prudential wisdom in securing their desired long-term, future goals. The executive functions are localised anatomically in the human brain's prefrontal cortex, a region of the neo-cortex that does not reach full maturity until around the age of 25 years.
I do agree with you that there does not appear to be any kind of robust correlation between affective mental processes like "compassion", and general intelligence - at least not in the mainstream scientific research literature. Though personally, I do think, there may well be a direct -ish relationship of some kind between emotional states like empathy/compassion and cognitive measures like the "g-factor," though this particular field of scientific research is extraordinary complex and it may take many years before neuroscientists are able to shed any further light on the issue.
Regards
Dachshund
I think Dungeons and Dragons represents it the best. Wizards (mathematicians, engineers, scientists etc) are typically high intelligence (IQ) and low (or middling) wisdom. Clerics (nurses, counsellors, social care workers etc) have high wisdom and low (or middling) intelligence.
Would I be correct in assuming that you are a "libtard" ? :lol:
Quoting fdrake
The meaning of the term widom is rather ambiguous today - it is used describe a number of different human attributes. In Victorian times it was synonymous with the word "prudence", and this is the sense that I am using it in my post. Prudence today connotes "caution", but in the 19th century, as I say, it referred to wisdom in the context of good common sense, it comes from the latin "prudentia, which is a contraction of "providentia", ( meaning to see ahead, sagacity). Thus, in the 19th century, a prudent or "wise" man was said to be one who made timely preparations for the contingencies of the future and any long-term goals he desired to achieve in the years ahead; for instance, a wise man was one who put aside a little money from his wages each month to invest for his retirement in old age, or save some money each week in order to be able to send his children to good schools in the future, today a wise man is one who gives up smoking tobacco / drinking excessive quantities of alcohol in light of it deleterious effects we are told by the medical profession that these substances will likely have on our health and well-being in the future etc.
You say "wisdom is intuition"... "sensing motives", etc; I think you are referring here to what is known in the vernacular as nous (the ancient greek word for (conscious) "mind" or "street smarts"; again, these are different intellectual qualities to what I would call "wisdom".
Medical knowledge in the West is fact - based; i.e. based on the growing body of hard facts/objective evidence established by the ongoing process of empirical medical/scientific research. To be a wise doctor takes EXPERIENCE (many years of it!) using these facts and learning from the outcomes of their application in the past, because medicine is not a precise, exact science like physics.
Regards
Dachshund
Not in Dungeons and Dragons. Wisdom is intuition, you can roll a wisdom check to assess someone's emotional state from body language, sensing motives is a wisdom based skill, medical knowledge is wisdom based, perception is wisdom based, capacity to learn a standard profession is wisdom based...
But yes, IQ tests tend to correlate with each other, so there's some good evidence that they measure some underlying thing - which is called a g-factor. Some measures of EQ have decent construct validity too. There's much more overlap between IQ and intelligence (general knowledge, puzzle solving etc) than IQ with wisdom or charisma (force of character, way with words). There's a lot of overlap between EQ (sense motive, determining emotions) and wisdom, less with intelligence. A sage would probably have very high wisdom and quite high intelligence.
I think the Dungeons and Dragons analogy is surprisingly representative and nuanced.
This is what we call low-quality posting.
Quoting Akanthinos
I do beg your pardon M'Lud !
Indeed. IQ does not measure intelligence. It measures the ability to do the test.
Quoting charleton
That's simply not true as a matter of scientific fact.
Current standardised IQ tests do accurately and reliably measure general intelligence ("g-factor") as I defined it above. Moreover, these measures of IQ have a very high predictive validity. These are hard, incontrovertible facts. IQ tests DO NOT merely measure the ability to do IQ tests. Full Stop.
Regards
Dachshund
Yeah, but what is the point of that argument in the context of this thread? Voting is not problem-solving. You can have a 180 I.Q. genius vote for a moron because the moron's wife is hot. Or because you think the moron would be cool to have a BBQ with.
Good correlation between a test and some property doesn't make what the test measures "a scientific fact." It makes the test a potentially useful instrument for understanding. In the case of the IQ test, it's for understanding human behavior.
So what level of IQ should someone have in order to be allowed to vote? 100? That excludes 50% of the population?
Considering this though, those living off social welfare are not really being taxed... so do they deserve representation? Well, they obviously need some form of representation, but perhaps a different forum would be appropriate there.
Something like 45.3% of Americans don't pay [income] taxes though, due to tax breaks, liabilities, or lack of income. That's a group that is bound to include many of the mentally disabled. If you're an earner and paying taxes though, even if you are not the smartest, you will want a say with where your money goes. Even an idiot can point a gun.
Moving to a system where the wealthier have voting control may lead to greater risk of extreme inequality. Perhaps land ownership or completed military service would also be pathways to voting access. Only allowing those with an education and a high intellect is a concern to me though, as education does not always translates into economic sensibilities. #communism
I recently read an excellent paper(*) by Clark Glymour, and reread another one(**), regarding the widespread misuse of factor analysis and multiple regression in social sciences. Regarding the former method, Glymour argues convincingly that Spearman made unwarranted statistical and causal assumptions while arguing for the existence of a unique g factor that would account for the correlations between results of tests of various cognitive abilities.
Yes, they do. But there is an step from this constatation to the inference that what it is that they measure is the cause of what it is that they predict. Herrnstein and Murray, in The Bell Curve, purported to show by means of multiple regression that a variety of social ills, behaviors and outcomes likely were caused by heritable components of cognitive abilities. In order to make causal claims on the basis of observed sets of correlations, though, regression models must, here also, be supplemented with a range a statistical and causal assumptions. Glymour argues that Herrnstein and Murray, just like Spearman, made several unwarranted assumptions.
Only some of those facts are hard. And among those that are hard, they is much room for discussing what it is that they really mean and what it is that can be validly inferred from them.
(*) This paper appeared a chapter 12 -- "Social Statistics and Genuine Inquiry: Reflections on
The Bell Curve" -- in the book Intelligence, Genes and Sucess: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve, Sptinger-Verlag 1997
(**) This one is available on Glymour's Carnegie Mellon University webpage: What Went Wrong: Reflections on Science by Observation and The Bell Curve, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), 1-32.
I've never understood this as to apply to current day situations in what appear to be Western societies (the thrust of this thread). In the context of when it was first voiced an entire group of people (US colonists) were taxed but could not elect members of parliament. It also opens up the spectre of an argument that those who pay more ought to have a bigger say or those who can't shouldn't.
If I'm taxed heavily, but I don't feel my contribution provides me adequate representation, I will simply flock to another country.
There is an impressive body of more recent research that strongly suggests:
(1) The "g-factor" represents a true high-order latent phenotype.
(2) The "g-factor" is largely a genetic phenomenon, with a heritability factor of over 0.85.
(3) "g" exists as a real phenomenon in the mind/brain as well as in psychometric tests.
(4) "g" can be understood as a causal differences construct.
If you are interested in any citations from the literature re the above, I can provide them for you.
Regards
Dachshund
Yes, it's true that there exists such an vast body of literature. (Heritability of g over 85% seems to be an outlier, though). It's also true that most papers that criticize those general conclusions generally miss the mark. Clark Glymour stresses this fact. Most of the authors who question the general conclusions of Herrnstein and Murray do so on the basis of conflicting evidence that generally is produced by equally flawed applications of methods of factor analysis and multiple regression in order to derive causal inferences. Glymour knows this because he has devoted a significant part of his career to (1) investigating the epistemological limitations of statistical methods that are routinely being applied in both natural and social science, and, (2) together with a few colleagues, to developing more efficient and better validated methods with the help of computers. (Those methods were successfully applied in variety of biological and social fields, and even in aerospace. Check his home page for references, or Google up "TETRAD II")
Yes, please, do so. But also remember that the quantity of flawed studies that purportedly support a conclusion doesn't compensate for the common flaw that they may share. And also, if you have the time, have a look at the paper that I already provided a link to, and tell me if some of your studies still appear methodologically valid in light of Glymour's general objections.
If this makes you feel any better, when we (statistics students) were taught confirmatory factor analysis at university, we were strongly advised never to perform it for ethical reasons (see 'non-uniqueness of factor loadings' here), especially to avoid varimax rotation. Instead it was strongly implied that we use principal components in exploratory factor analysis instead. To my knowledge p-hacking is also cautioned against now, but the replication crisis wasn't yet a fashionable topic to teach budding statisticians.
Edit: The rule of thumb is: quantities derived from observational studies have indeterminate causal structure. The most you can do is rule some structures out. Further, thou shalt not interpret small studies causally without systematic controls and power calculations. He who does not do statistical power calculations (or type M&S error simulations) has forgotten the face of his father.
I'm indeed reassured to hear that. The two papers by Glymour that I referenced are now 20 years old. Maybe political scientists and psychometricians presently better heed the warnings and caveats from the professional statisticians who devise their methods and the software packages that they use. It may be mainly intellectual celebrities like Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux (who still reference The Bell Curve as the source of all their "scientific facts" regarding race, IQ and outcomes) who may not have gotten the memo.
Thanks for all those informative links!
This is a bit off topic, but I think it's of general interest.
The methodological flaws that lead to the replication crises are still operative. Some of this can be attributed to 'publish or perish' culture, but I think - and I have little evidence for this compared to the enormity of the claim - that the interaction of:
(1) poor applied statistical pedagogy,
(2) low standards for experimental design
(3) 'convenience sampling' being equated to genuine random sampling strategies
(4) the identification of performing hypothesis tests with enacting an empirical paradigm of research.
(5) the identification of scientific relevance with a rejected null hypothesis
is a driving force of poor quality science.
Hypothesis tests themselves reward noisy data collection. Gelman and his coauthors have worked extensively on this recently. And in 2014 a biomedical science journal outlawed the use of p-value hypothesis testing in submitted papers. Hopefully the times they are a'changing.
I'm not sure why you cite UCRRPD as authority when it's not accepted as an authority anywhere. The authority of the rule in Ireland (if it has adopted it) comes only from Ireland having adopted it, not from it having any authority on its own.
But, since what you said seemed incorrect (or, at best, a really bad rule) I did look it up (http://www.era-comm.eu/uncrpd/kiosk/speakers_contributions/111DV69/Dimopoulos_pres.pdf) and what this author says is that the rule says legal capacity should not be arbitrarily denied someone based upon disability, which simply means that mental capacity can be used to deny legal capacity if warranted under the facts and it's not denied arbitrarily. The absurdity of holding a severely mentally limited person liable under a contract he signed hardly seems like a progressive notion.
To the extent though the rule does mean that there should be no legal protections or limitations upon those who lack the ability to comprehend what they're engaging in, I am encouraged by the overwhelming rejection of the rule by the various European countries.
I concur very strongly, as Trump would say. I've recently argued with some of my friends about what seems to be the damaging effect of the hegemony of the research paradigm of p-value hypothesis testing in many areas of social science. It seemed to me to reflect some unwarranted empiricist assumptions about the categorical separation of 'raw' data from 'subjective' theory, and to foster an unwarranted skepticism directed at our theoretical and practical (technically effective) understanding of the world. For one thing, those empiricist assumptions obscure the fact that the null hypothesis can't generally be meaningfully falsified since its initial credence (prior probability) must be evaluated in light of the plausibility and fruitfulness of the "theory" that supports it. One example that we discussed was the idea of rejecting the null hypothesis (with p=0.01, say) in light of a statistically significant "result" of telepathic communication, which is absurd. At best, the Bayesian analysis of the result of the experiment that we just performed ought to lead us to update our credence in the reality of telepathy from a microscopic 'prior credence' to a slightly higher but trill microscopic 'posterior credence'.
That's remarkable! I'll show this to my friends.
No idea what you're referencing, but our question wasn't when "rationality" was attained, and I've no idea how a recognition of rationality would result in a minor being treated like he was the age of majority. In Georgia (where I live), we adhere to a pretty standard rule that a child under 18 who wishes to sue must sue through his parents and he can only be sued through his parents. A child under 18 has limited liability in certain situations, and cannot be bound by a contract. None of this suggests that a 17 year old is inherently "irrational," only that he lacks the capacity to make such life changing decisions at an early age.
The main rationale for denying to mentally incapacitated individuals the right to represent themselves legally, or administratively, seems to be to protect them from themselves. They need help, and hence, some custodian such as a family member of some public agency is tasked with representing their interests. This doesn't appear to me to apply to the right to vote since a vote cast for the 'wrong' candidate is unlikely to harm the individual as much as denying them this fundamental civic right can potentially harm them morally should they express the wish to exercise this right. (Also, since it's a right that they are unlikely to demand to exercise anyway, there is no downside to granting them universally).
I think logical consistency would demand that if we believe the mentally handicapped should be protected from the decisions they impose on themselves, society should be protected from the decisions they attempt to impose on society. If a mentally handicapped person decides in favor of spending his entire inheritance on a single scoop of ice cream, society should not hold him to it. By the same token, if the mentally handicapped person decides in favor of (i.e. casts his ballot) spending all of society's tax dollars on a single scoop of ice cream, society should be afforded the same protections against him that he received for himself.
The difference is that him deciding (and being allowed) to spend his inheritance on a scoop of ice cream will lead to him spending his inheritance on a scoop of ice cream, but him deciding (and being allowed to) vote in favour of spending all of society's tax dollars on a scoop of ice cream won't lead to all of society's tax dollars being spent on a scoop of ice cream (unless he's the only voter), and so it's a false analogy.
So there really needs to be a strong case to show that allowing the mentally ill to vote will actually (or at least with a reasonable possibility) lead to a bad outcome.
Besides, if we actually consider a real-life example of a ballot, the choice is usually going to be between a member of one party or the member of another, rather than some silly choice on what to spend all of society's money on. For the most part, the available options are reasonable (and even when they're not, you get sane people voting for the Monster Raving Loony Party, too).
The distinction you point out is only due to the relative limited power of a single vote in a large democracy, resting upon the notion that a certain percentage of the stupid votes can be absorbed by a generally not stupid population. You can change the scenario to a district where there is a large home of mentally handicapped people who are swayed to vote by someone whose intent is to raid the public funds for his own pet project or you can place them all on a jury to decide someone's guilt. That is to say, your distinction is just an irrelevant detail that can be resolved to make the point that protecting the public from those who are clearly without the capacity to make their own decisions is good public policy, even if it violates some idealistic standard you're trying to impose without concern for practical impact.
I am considering the practical impact (see my edit). Your hypothetical example is an absurdity. In a real life case, the options are going to be the sort of things that sane people also vote for.
Quoting Hanover
Is there likely to be a district where most voters suffer from a severe mental illness that leaves them incapable of rational choice?
Quoting Hanover
One can allow them the right to vote but not allow them to serve on a jury.
This is a votes don't really matter argument. I'm just not willing to concede that. The choice needn't be silly. It could be very important and ideological. One sides wants to raise taxes to provide better public transportation, the other doesn't. It looks like it's going to go the way of higher taxes, so the Republicans get some vans and go to the hospital caring for the mentally handicapped and round them up, scare them into voting their way, and it swings the vote.
Your whole objection is based upon the idea that votes don't matter. Come up with your own example where they do, and in that instance, are you happy with the deciding votes being cast by those who don't know what they're doing?
Coercing someone to vote a certain way is a crime. And also can be done to sane victims.
Being rational in the eyes of the court has nothing to do with being an adult or voting legally.
In french-canadian Civil court, determining if a child is rational or not is important because if the child causes damages, is rational (so he could understand an instruction as to not cause damages) and it's demonstrated that the parents failed to instruct the child properly, they could be held entirely responsible for the damages, even if they otherwise acted diligently.
If the child is not rational, the court must otherwise determine if the damage was caused by the child through a lack of care of the parent. There is no point in asking a child if his parents told him not to play with matches when its evident to everyone that the child could not understand what an instruction is anyway.
That's what rationality is in the eyes of the court here, and again the origin of the 7 years old as 'the age of reason'. Nothing to do with being an adult or voting.
But that has nothing to do with a child's liability or a child being held responsible for anything. That has to do with when to impose vicarious liability on the parents. The parents are being held liable for the acts of their child, which clearly indicates under the law that the child has limited duties to the public and is being considered a ward of his parents.
And so what I said still holds true: the recognition of rationality on the part of a minor does not result in his being treated like he was the age of majority. Otherwise, the child would be being sued directly, but in this case, he's not being sued at all. His parents are being sued.
I'd also point out that vicarious liability laws for the acts of their minor children vary considerably by jurisdiction. In Georgia, there are different standards for negligent versus malicious acts, and they do not reflect the law as exists in Canada. Regardless, I don't see where anything you've said of Canadian law affects our discussion here.
Never said it did. You brought that into question. Rationality is not the basis of why we get to vote as of 18, or why we are considered adults. We are all (hopefully) rational a good decade before that.
Quoting Hanover
It's also a bit more than that. If the child had been found rational, then the damages can be imposed on the parents until the child is of age, and then they can sue their child to get the damages reimbursed and the debt transfered. If the child was not rational, but the parents did not act diligently, they will be stuck with the damages forever.
Quoting Hanover
Well, for starters, the discussion relates to a U.K law. As such, the Common Law basis is identical in both jurisdictions, and for the longest time, the highest instances were the same (the Chamber of Lords). Technically, the opinion of a georgian lawyer would be as if not more otiose than that of a canadian one.
You brought up the rationality criteria, but it appears we both agree to its irrelevance.Quoting Akanthinos
You miss the point. I wasn't saying it was irrelevant because Canada is an irrelevant backwater. I was saying it was irrelevant because the law has nothing to do with imposing liability on minors. In fact, everything you've said indicates that minors are a very different class altogether, offering support for why they ought be denied a right to vote and the like.
At ages 14 and 15, parents would be liable unless they can prove they met their duty of care. In that case, only the child would be independently liable but a judge's ability to mitigate damages would probably prevent awarding (the entirety) of damages. A child can now be liable for a failure to act as well.
From ages 16 and up, a child is liable on his own unless the parents failed to act or acted in such a way that was tortious as well. Again, mitigation probably prevents award of all damages where only the child would be held liable.
Finally, most everyone in the Netherlands has a liability insurance policy. If someone is insured for a certain act or failure to act, mitigation isn't possible. So on the basis of uninsured circumstances a person suffering damages caused by a child might have a problem recouping his losses but in reality this is mostly taken care of through insurance.
If they cannot measure the ability to do the test; what chance has it got of measuring intelligence. LOL!
IQ tests are sexist, ethnocentric and only measure specific areas of intelligence.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-fallacy-study-8425911.html
https://www.livestrong.com/article/127284-disadvantages-iq-tests/
https://revisesociology.com/2017/08/15/why-iq-tests-may-not-measure-intelligence/
Any consideration of applying IQ testing as some sort of rubric to qualify a person to Vote is absurd in the extreme.
The only qualification has to be the ability to register, and choose.
Vote for Richard Potato!!!!
I expect a five year old could register and choose. I think you're missing the point here. Some kind of test of intellect is being applied in deciding who can votes, it's just that at the moment it's an entirely arbitrary one based on age. I think we could do better than that.
Age is not entirely arbitrary as you imply with your comment.
Age of consent, although a blunt instrument means that a a five year old cannot legally choose.
Banning a person from voting due to failing a test is impractical, open to abuse and would only allow further restriction to follow, by changes to the test.
For example the IQ test is limited by several factors.
The previous experience and education of the person tested
His degree of familiarity with the subject matter of the test
His motivation or desire to achieve a good score, in the appropriate time frame.
His rapport with the tester
his knowledge of the language in which the test is conducted. This includes skills at basic literacy and numeracy.
his physical health and well-being.
Cultural and ethnic preconception also skew the results.
Since the number of people with mental disabilities is minor the existing qualifications such as motivation, effort to register, and to vote and choose is enough to deter those with severe problems, and the process of candidate selection precludes ridiculous choices.
Even where ridiculous candidates are on the ballot paper they have little chance of winning. The Monster Raving Loony Party has never achieved 3% in any election.
https://www.omrlp.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party
Richard Potato-Head?
I don't understand your argument here. You're saying that age is not entirely arbitrary, but no-one is suggesting that IQ tests are entirely arbitrary either, just that they are far from perfect, moderately arbitrary, we might say.
So what's your argument that the 'moderately arbitrary' age method is better than the 'moderately arbitrary' IQ test method?
AKA
Dick Tater!!
I'm not saying that. What I would suggest is that even the mentally ill have political interests, and their voice is as valid as any one else.
Passing a test with all its problems is not a valid way to disenfranchise people.
Such tests would discriminate by ethnicity and education. I could not accept that.
As is the case with the vast majority of 16 year olds. Who are nonetheless disenfranchised.
Quoting charleton
And being a certain age is?
I'm not arguing here in favour of IQ testing, I'm arguing against the way in which such a suggestion is being vehemently argued against, whilst the equally arbitrary, and grossly unfair age limit is dismissed as fine with a wave of the hand.
I'd agree that we need to extend the vote to 16years too. I assume that you too have an age limit in mind though? One that is not completely arbitrary?
There is a key difference between age and mental capacity which makes your analogy false. Age is wholly a linear spectrum where we have a clear case of growing capability. The same cannot be said of "mental disabilities"
For my money anyone with enough volition to register, take the voting card to the booth and make a choice is enough. I imagine that there are some that are capable of doing this but would not make a wise choice; or a choice of value to society or democracy - but since the criteria are subjective I do not think it would be practical or wise to weed out this tiny number. And who would decide those criteria.
"Mental disability" covers a huge and diverse field, making it impossible to compare with age.
Stroke victims alone feature a massive range of diverse abilities. Down's syndrome are a significant group in society and I would not want them to be disbarred from participation.
Mental Health services is a hot political topic; underfunded with patchy provision throughout the western world. The idea that you would give insult to (maybe) millions of people to prevent them voting is horrific.
I suggest you spend an afternoon with a few people with Down's and try to tell them they are not allowed to vote. I think you might surprise yourself.
The treatment of Down's people has ben transformed in my lifetime. Previously they were dismissed as retarded and locked away. Revisions in care have transformed lives.
If the scenario is such that there are more number of "mentally handicapped" person than "mentally healthy" people, the definition of mental health will required to be altered. It may be that the what you are thinking of being mentally healthy is actually mentally handicapped for most.
As per definition of democracy it will go by what most people thinks. It does not matter whether it is "good or bad", "right or wrong".
I'm not talking about a pandemic of mental retardation sweeping the countryside to the point where we've lost sight of our baseline of what constitutes normal intelligence so that the new normal is a dramatically reduced state of intelligence. I'm talking about District 1 having a mental hospital housing a large number of intellectually challenged people and those people being permitted to vote and alter the outcome of an election. While I can appreciate that "normal" is relative, we fortunately will still have enough people from outside that hospital that can remind us of what normal intelligence looks like.Quoting SantanuUnless the democracy places limitations upon what the public can decide, as in a constitutional democracy, like exists in the US.
As to the question of whether someone with Down's Syndrome can vote, it varies by state (for a full breakdown: https://www.866ourvote.org/newsroom/publications/body/0049.pdf)
Generally, any one found mentally incompetent cannot vote, but whether that applies to those with Down's Syndrome appears to vary.
What a terrible rule. Damages are damages, regardless of ability to pay. Why don't you guys just mandate liability insurance, go to a single payer system, have the government take it over, and then just redistribute the wealth according to need?
You mustn't forget that even if these children are uninsured, the likelihood the person that suffered damages is insured against those damages himself in the Netherlands is huge. Every injury is covered by universal healthcare insurance, damages to cars are covered in instances where they were caused by others, etc. etc. We do like our insurances here. So the insurance company is generally left holding the bag since they cannot recoup the payment they made.
In fact, here's another nice one: if there's an accident between a car and biker, the car always has to pay for the damages because they have mandatory insurance even if it was the fault of the biker. Again, the insurance company is left holding the bag on that one too.
I would say 12. There is limited research in the area, but what little there is tends to show that children from the age of 11ish are by-and-large capable of making rational choices.
Quoting charleton
I understand the distinction you're making, but I'm not sure what difference you think it makes. Surely both issues are about the fact that a certain group of people might not be able to make a rational decision. Otherwise we might as well give five year olds the vote, what other reason could there be not too.?
Quoting charleton
I don't think it is "horrific" to deny the vote to someone who is incapable of understanding what it is for and what their choices mean. I do think that if we are to allow the mentally ill to vote so long as they have the most basic grasp of what it means (which I agree with) then it is an horrific insult to a well educated and concerned 14 year old to be told that we have so little faith in them that we rate their capabilities below those of the seriously mentally ill.
If the "mental retardation" becomes the normal, we may be looked at like "out of place , hyperactive, abnormal, minority" even be put inside hospital and may be debated whether should we be allowed to vote.
Democracy can still prevail
The thread is about the UK where this discrimination does not exist.
But thanks for the info. Part so the US can be very backwards indeed. It's a wonder women can vote.
Sure, Planet of the Apes.
You are trying to impose a law that is useless.
It's discrimination for the sake of it.
If every single person who was mentally ill, incapable of rational choice, or with any significant mental disability it would make no difference to the outcome of any election, as they are few in number and have a limited choice in candidates.
Unless you are trying to disallow millions of voters what is the point of discriminating against the most vulnerable people in society?
Any benefit you think you might gain, would be wiped out completely by the negative effects of trying to impose a ban, and the wholesale rejection of groups of vulnerable people.
That's what I was picking up on and what instigated my prior post. Your system appears less concerned about assigning responsibility and more about providing benefits regardless of fault. It's for that reason I suggested throwing out the private insurance and just making it a government run plan. I'd think that once you've added up your taxes and then thrown in your insurance payments, you'd have little money left to buy your herring treats.Quoting BenkeiInsurance is a pooling of resources obviously, so the ones holding the bag are those who've contributed, which sounds like everyone. Those kinds of systems would seem to work best in homogenous, educated societies where there is a shared work ethic and value system. My guess is that internal opposition to your system comes from those distrustful of outsiders and concern that the common good is being disproportionately provided to those with lesser contribution. Of course, you likely call those people xenophobes, which maybe they are, but they might also be correct in prognosing an unsustainable system.
Then again, maybe I'm just talking about where I live, but maybe it's universal. I'd guess the latter.
The aim of the civil court system is for damages to get paid, when damages are real. If a 15-18 causes 250 000$ of damages to a landlord, it is not a valid reason for the landlord to have to eat up any of that 250 000$ in damages himself, that it was caused by someone who is only 15-18.
Let's say you're 15, driving your bicycle down the road and you don't give right of way for a bugatti veyron causing 120.000 euros in repairs and paint job because you didn't see it coming. You don't have insurance, your parents aren't held liable : is it fair and equitable to have to pay (everything)?
Edit : to emphasise, I'm not asking about what the result would be in your law system, I'm asking about your personal, ethical position.
But I digress.
My ethical position would be that I would not hold the child liable for the repair. In fact, I'd have some problem holding a 21 year old responsible. It has to do with my maybe incorrect view that you assume a certain risk walking around with a Faberge Egg in your coat pocket and the fault is your own if something should happen to it.
I'm not trying to impose a law, I simply said that I didn't think it was "horrific", whether is it either practical or necessary is another question.
Quoting charleton
No, it is (or it would be if anyone were to actually do it), discrimination in order to avoid spoilt ballots. Whether there is a need to avoid spoilt ballots is another question, I'm personally not convinced there is, but it's certainly not just "for the sake of" discrimination.
Quoting charleton
As I said above, I'm not arguing that it is necessary, I'm arguing that the principle is exactly the same one by which we disenfranchise young people and so is not, in principle, horrific. It may well be pointless in practice and so not worth even bothering with. It may well be that giving the vote to all the mentally ill is an excellent idea because it will make them feel good about themselves for the cost of very little harm to democracy, fine, but the principle of disenfranchising people who are probably incapable of making a rational choice is one which is already applied to about 12 million people in the UK, simply by virtue of their being under 18, it can hardly be labelled "horrific".
Boo Hoo.
The spoilt ballot is in itself a political statement.
Get over yourself!
False analogy for the reason I stated above.
The disconnection of mental capacity from legal capacity should of course not be absolute or reckless. It has been suggested that one sensible way to be UNCRPD compliant is for an extremely incapacitous adult to at least retain the right to sack their decision-maker, even if they have all other decisions made on their behalf. This would only be in the most extreme cases in which supported decision making were not possible.
Your converse point about holding incapacitous people responsible is an interesting one. Again, the actual system adopted should be a sensible one. A court having the power to hold an incapacitous person fully accountable does not mean they have the duty to. And I would expect that in nearly all cases it would not.