LOSTONE Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 What’s the difference between actual evil and mental illness?This question has been asked countless times before by many, but until today, I never got a response I felt was right.I was told by some that actual evil is by comprehensive choice where as mental illness is not by choice or comprehensive. This seems to make perfect sense to me. I agree with it.When someone does something horrible, is it because they are evil or mentally ill? With the understanding I got today, it is a question of if they made a comprehensive choice to do something horrible or they where unable to help themselves or understand their actions. In some cases, it is actual evil and other cases, it is mental illness. Yet, there are cases where it is a mixture of both. 1
Calm Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 I would agree. Evil is a choice. Unfortunately that choice can be perpetuated long afterwards by the harm it has done to those who then carry on the evil but have much less concious ability to resist doing it. Think abuse victims who then abuse others even as they hate themselves for doing so or because they don't understand there are other ways to behave. 1
thesometimesaint Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 (edited) The mentally ill can do incredibly evil things, but no I don't believe they are responsible for those evil acts. They need profession mental health care and not further mistreatment. Edited February 10, 2015 by thesometimesaint
The Nehor Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 There are so many degrees of mental illness that dividing the two is probably impossible for anyone short of God. I once did something as a teen in a passionate state that I am not proud of and God seemed more lenient then usual because I was pushed past my breaking point. I suspect that I do share some of the blame. Many of the mentally ill are also evil but it is very rare that it is my responsibility to figure out who is evil.
Judd Posted February 12, 2015 Posted February 12, 2015 I think more of your question lies in defining mental illness and then defining evil. Often times people want this to be a cut-and-dry, black-and-white issue. Mental illness is simply an umbrella term. If you look at a legal parallel, this perhaps could help you. Someone with a mental illness (for instance, schizophrenia) could murder somebody and the fact that they have schizophrenia isn't really of concern as much as whether or not that influenced them. If they are delusional and believe that JFK is still alive and has been tapping his phones, this would be a separate issue if he killed somebody robbing a store. On the other hand, if he has schizophrenia and believes that his neighbor has been listening to him through the electricity in his house and he needs to kill his neighbor because he believes he's plotting to kill him, then this is a different story. If a man hears voices telling him to rob a 7-11 and he understands that doing so is wrong and that he could be punished, then this individual could very possibly be found competent to stand trial. The bottom line is that being mentally ill is not all-encompassing. People still have concepts of right and wrong. Depending on their illness, they may be delusional and lack insight to understand reality, but the fact that somebody is mentally ill does not mean that every component of their life is disconnected from reality. Another issue is defining mental illness. Not all illnesses are psychotic disorders. Often times we view people as being "crazy" because they do something that a normal person wouldn't do. For instance, killing people. Yes, in most cases people who kill people are "crazy" in a societal definition because normal people don't kill people. This doesn't mean that every murderer is mentally ill. Too often you have people with antisocial personality disorder engaging in criminal behavior and they continue to get punted to the mental health system. From my point of view, I find this rather inappropriate. Mentally unstable does not equate to mental illness. Somebody wanting to kill somebody surely has problems, but I think society is often confused about this as they're confused about mental illness in general. These people end up making threats to kill people (criminal behavior) and have a history of explosive behavior (and I'm sure someone has probably inappropriately called them bipolar disorder in the past) and the police pick them up, put them on an emergency psychiatric hold and transport them to a hospital. So then a psychiatric facility is holding a hot potato for issues they can't address. If somebody is psychotic (truly psychotic) and is dangerous (as a result of a true psychosis), then this is absolutely something that needs to be managed from a psychiatric perspective. There are so many degrees of mental illness that dividing the two is probably impossible for anyone short of God. While I'd let the whole judgment of evil be up to God, I don't think separating out someone with mental illness from someone who's simply a sociopath is all too terribly difficult for a trained professional (though many seem to exhibit incompetence in this regard). I could rant for a while on this but I'll leave it at that and clarify where needed.
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