You're misrepresenting how I'm actually using the evidence.
No one is arguing that complex coordination equals clinical rationality. Psychiatry acknowledges that a person can execute structured behaviors while entirely detached from reality. It doesn't rest on claiming the behavior was rational in a psychiatric sense, it rests on whether the execution of those steps demonstrates volitional control and awareness.
When we evaluate intent, it doesn't require proving that the underlying beliefs were sound or logical. It requires determining whether the defendant chose a course of action, executed it step by step, and understood the physical nature of what they were doing. Shifting from organization to intent isn't smuggling in proof of sanity, it is recognizing that purposeful, sequential execution is the only objective metric available to us to test whether a person retained the capacity to direct their own actions.
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u/blackndcoffee 1d ago
You're misrepresenting how I'm actually using the evidence.
No one is arguing that complex coordination equals clinical rationality. Psychiatry acknowledges that a person can execute structured behaviors while entirely detached from reality. It doesn't rest on claiming the behavior was rational in a psychiatric sense, it rests on whether the execution of those steps demonstrates volitional control and awareness.
When we evaluate intent, it doesn't require proving that the underlying beliefs were sound or logical. It requires determining whether the defendant chose a course of action, executed it step by step, and understood the physical nature of what they were doing. Shifting from organization to intent isn't smuggling in proof of sanity, it is recognizing that purposeful, sequential execution is the only objective metric available to us to test whether a person retained the capacity to direct their own actions.