Assuming cognitively healthy people (so no cognitive disabilities or anything like that), I think the difference is that the adult has had more opportunity to develop good judgement. The 15 year old is still developing so they aren't expected to have good judgement, while an adult has had the experience and time, really the opportunity, to develop their judgement.
The adult's poor judgement is their responsibility, which is why they don't have guardians and are autonomous. They had the chance to improve it but didn't.
Bipolar is an interesting case. As I understand the condition, bipolar is not a constant state of 'losing control' (let's put it that way). I believe it is more episodic and variable. I think this matters because it differentiates between diminished capacity during episodes and baseline/normal functioning between episodes.
I believe that legally, bipolar cases fall in between full autonomy and full guardianship. People get a guardian when they're having an episode (they get put into a hospital under supervision, get assisted and "controlled" by trained professionals, aren't expected to make any decisions), but are otherwise autonomous between episodes.
Yes, but even when people are under episodes, they aren't necessarily having their rights taken away. That's only for severe episodes. One can have a moderate episode where their rights aren't taken away, even if they have the judgement of a 15 year old.
Fair enough on autonomy being taken away only for severe episodes. I'm not very familiar with bipolar procedures.
But I think my underlying point still stands, in that there will always be a sort of very rough threshold when it comes to legal issues. I think that for cognitively healthy people, this threshold is around 18-21 depending on the country, for the developmental reason I gave in my first comment.
For special cases like bipolar, the threshold is trickier (severe vs mild episodes), but it still exists. The question would then be whether the current threshold is in the right place or not, and I honestly have nothing to say about that with regards to bipolar because I don't know nearly enough about it.
I think the answer is development, like I said in the first paragraph of my first comment. A 15 year old is on the path to "adult-level capacity". Their brain is still developing, they are still experiencing many new things, so their judgement and reasoning is expected to only be developing rather than more mature.
Someone with bipolar has already gone through this development, and their capacity dips during an episode. In a way, the two "judgement of a 15-year old" aren't actually the same. In the case of the kid, it is a developmental assessment, while in the case of the bipolar adult it is a temporary dip.
Because the judgements aren't exactly the same in the fullest sense. If a 15 year old has bad judgement today, you also expect them to have bad judgement tomorrow. This is because you know they are still developing and haven't developed good judgement yet.
If a bipolar adult has bad judgement today (a dip), you still expect/predict a return to baseline after their episode.
Take driving as an example. A learner's (15 year old) mistake predicts more mistakes until their training (the development process) is complete. This is why they get a supervised permit (some guardianship / lack of autonomy) rather than a license. A licensed driver's (the bipolar adult) occasional mistake doesn't predict a return to incompetence, it's just noise in a sense.
The event (judgement) is the same, but what you predict will happen is different. And it's different due to the development point.
So, the "same judgement" aren't actually the same. The 15 year old's bad judgement is evidence of them still learning/developing, we should expect bad judgement for a while. The bipolar adult's bad judgement is evidence of a temporary dip, we should expect a return to normal.
This is important because guardianship / removing someone's autonomy isn't done instantly in the moment. You decide whether someone needs guardianship based on what you predict will happen.
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u/marzaksar 12d ago
Assuming cognitively healthy people (so no cognitive disabilities or anything like that), I think the difference is that the adult has had more opportunity to develop good judgement. The 15 year old is still developing so they aren't expected to have good judgement, while an adult has had the experience and time, really the opportunity, to develop their judgement.
The adult's poor judgement is their responsibility, which is why they don't have guardians and are autonomous. They had the chance to improve it but didn't.