Evil or Mental Illness?

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I think that only a small portion of crimes are truly attributed to mental illness. That is where the person is literally insane and not aware of what they are doing in a normal sense. They are incapable of having a normal sense.

The rest are committed by technically sane people. There are some who commit crimes just out of badness. They do not ascribe to typical society standards or beliefs.

Quite a few are done by people in various stages of mental duress or instability. There are of course many mental conditions one can have without being insane. Badness can play a varying role. Most people are capable of good and bad. It all depends what is on top at any given moment.

The law seems to draw the line at literal sanity. If you are sane you are expected to follow the laws regardless of your mental state.

One of the problems, I think, is that we separate murder into a category of "truly evil" when it really stems from the same place as other "lesser sins" such as stealing or adultery. They all come from the same root - selfishness. The one who commits the crime decides that what he/she wants is more important than letting the person they take it from have what is rightfully theirs, whether it be life, possessions, or an exclusive romantic relationship.

It gets down to motives, I think.

The person who is murdering out of selfishness is committing evil. The one who is murdering due to insane thoughts, such as hearing voices, etc. is mentally ill.

That being said, I don't think it is necessarily easy to tell the difference between the two. A person could say that he/she heard voices in order to avoid being punished as a criminal. That is why we have psych evaluations and trials, where things like motive and premeditation are figured out, and to see (as best one can) whether or not the murderer is indeed sane.

Yes, humans are definitely capable of committing heinous acts for personal gain, without having any sort of mental disease. If the proper values, and respect for life, aren't instilled in us by our parents we are more likely to kill to get what we want, as well. Even if they are, it is still possible we might abandon them in a moment of weakness or desperation.

This is just about semantics.

In legal terminology, sure, we can call many murderers "sane."

But personally, I don't consider those with that level of greed and malevolence to be psychologically healthy/ sane. Contrary to what some misanthropists of this forum claim, humans are loving by nature. When a human is neglected, abused, corrupted, damaged, they can turn to violence, but I would not call them sane at that point.

AH----THERE'S a good distinction!!

A lot of it is about controlling impulses. People frequently get angry or envious or greedy, or get into unbalanced mental states but the society has determined what is allowable and what is destructive. So for instance, no matter how distraught one is, it is still considered murder to kill some one, except in literal self defense.

But we know how difficult it is for people to control impulses. People frequently describe a period as 'not being themselves' or 'I was out of my mind with anger, or grief', etc. One you hear a lot lately, to explain a negative behavior, is 'That is not who I am'. Intoxications worsen the situation by suppressing self control and inhibition.

But in most cases the individual is aware of the reality and makes a choice to commit the crime or not. Sometimes in different societies there is recognition of some specific behaviors that have mitigating circumstances or are more acceptable in a sense. An example might be 'Crime of Passion'. But this is on sketchy ground as such can also be used to justify such things as 'Honor Killings'.

All in all it is best I think to draw the line where it is, at literal sanity, and expect people to be responsible for their actions.

I do get tired of this generalization, one does not need to be mentally ill to commit terrorism, violent crime, corruption, abuse ect. Though in some cases it can be a factor, but statistically mentally ill people are more likely to be the victims of those things than the perpetrators, feel free to look it up. Also most crimes committed by mentally ill people tend to be non-violent drug offenses or petty offenses like stealing a bag a chips or a sandwich from the grocery store.

As for evil all humans have the capability for it....though I don't necessarily like the term as I am not sure there is such a thing as pure evil, like when people say it in the religious sense like something being the devils work.

Yet many are perfectly fine to stand by and let such murder take place much of the time or will find ways to justify it in their sane rational minds. Most of Nazi Germany was not mentally ill during the holocaust the nazis just had it down very well how to use propaganda and media to justify what was going on, keep it kind of on the down low that people where actually being gassed to death in large quantities plenty of sane rational people bought it. Also though pretty sure most murderers are not mentally ill but I suppose I'd have to look up the statistics.

Just venturing a theory. Don't want anyone to jump on me about my personal ideas/ideals/religions/etc. What if as is suggested by Arabics/Jewish, Autistic people are directly controlled tools of either side of the spectrum? Good/Evil. Or born of God etc. Meaning, more attuned to a "spiritual" reality than others.

For me I don't believe in a "spiritual" realm in the traditional sense, however I do believe another realm exists over our perceivable one and it transgresses dark matter etc. Sort of like the marbles in the film Men in Black. The universe itself perceivable from outside it. Physics itself suggests in a lot of ways that what is not perceived does not exist so it sort of fits in that sense. Now I am sure a lot of you balked at that statement in it's simplicity, but I won't pretend to be Sheldon here so you get what you get.

What this would suggest is that non autistic people would be less attuned to the visual perception of said realm and therefore less able to consciously control their input. Which of course would at least partially alleviate them of some guilts. Probably not the most popular idea as I know at least some people like to think autistic people can be alleviated of some guilts by similar reasoning. Something I do not agree with as I believe autistic individuals may have a more clear understanding of the important aspects of reality.

Evil and mentally ill are not related, there is no line between them as they are two separate things entirely. Both can result in people committing crimes though, as can many things, and someone can be both evil and mentally ill, but they don't make people do the same crimes for the same reasons. The problem is society tries to lump all acts as being explained by mental illness without mentioning mental illness anywhere else, making people think mental illness = evil.

I do not follow any religion or specific spiritual belief....but I have had experiences that to me suggest I am certainly more sensitive to what one might call supernatural/spiritual forces, though not ruling out there is some scientific (logical) explanation that involves no spirit realm of any kind but as far as I know they haven't come up with one. But do not really see what its got to do with evil per say, I would imagine that would depend upon what one does with that extra sensitivity to such things. I have seen as well as felt the presence of beings that don't seem to be of this realm that is for sure...but maybe just not of this world difficult to say.

As I said before, this is more about semantics than anything else. There is a big difference between the LEGAL terminology (what lawyers consider "serious" mental incapacity used in those studies you're referring to) and what psychologists, neurologists, and other scientists who study the human brain consider unhealthy human behavior.

I am not trying to defend criminals by using mental illness as an excuse, nor am I saying that mentally ill aren't often victims of crime. What I'm saying is that there are many different types of mentally unhealthy people in the world. From my view, a sociopathic, greedy, pathological liar is actually more mentally sick than a schizophrenic person who has never harmed anyone. And yet because the schizophrenic may be unable to take care of herself well and live a normal life, society stigmatizes her as more "ill" than the sociopath who appears functionally normal to most people.

Calling someone "evil" is not only ridiculous, it does absolutely nothing to explain or solve the problem. I see the word as stemming from religion. Condemning a person as evil is to say they are beyond help. This is how people justified the death penalty. I don't believe the death penalty is right, and I don't believe in the devil, religion, or any "malevolent higher power" for that matter.

On the other hand, identifying someone as "sick" or "ill" is acknowledging that they are in an unhealthy state, and that they are not necessarily beyond help, encouraging humanity to work on the problem.

That makes sense, guess i kinda misunderstood you....I agree about calling someone evil being ridiculous, I mean as you say it does not offer any kind of real solution.

Where does choice come from, then?

Are all "evil" actions stemming from mental illness in your view? This is why I brought up other "evils" like stealing and adultery. I have rarely heard of anyone blaming stealing on mental illness, and I have never heard of adultery as being caused by mental illness.

Yet, all these things involve actions that harm another person in some way, and are bad.

At a certain point, actions are due to a *choice* that is made.

Would you say that *all* bad choices are due to being mentally ill?

Where do you see the line?

This is the old nature/ nurture debate. Social environments and genetics both play roles. But I believe that in proper environments, the majority of humanity are capable of developing healthy decision-making skills. And for that majority, nature may determine the "upper limits" of what we can learn, but there is still a lot of room for growth. All the more reason for humanity to work on the environmental aspects where we have the most control.

I prefer not to view the world in terms of the "good versus evil" dichotomy, or from legal perspectives. I'm not interested in drawing rigid lines, and I don't have much confidence in our legal system. I see mental health as more of a spectrum. Each human is unique, our histories are complex, and we are not fully defined by medical diagnoses. Understanding ourselves is a lifelong process. I don't like judging people or deciding punishments, but I am interested in the psychological causes and the prevention of harmful behavior.

I don't think I have ever heard that, either----BUT, I'm thinking there's SOMETHING behind it----especially, "serial adulterers". Take this business with Bill Cosby, for instance. Now, I know he's being accused of RAPE (and THAT, IMO, is SICK), but I've been hearing for DECADES that he was sleeping-around (adulterer). The same with Tiger Woods----and, I'm thinking Monica Lewinsky wasn't the ONLY one, President Clinton was foolin'-around with.

It may just be ego, with these men, and then one could posit that that's "emotion", maybe, as opposed to mental illness----but, I definitely think there's some "food for thought", there.