Query:

Some people blur the distinction between mental illness and moral wrong by ascribing certain behaviors to mental illness when they are in fact simply evil acts.  Have you ever addressed this interesting topic?

 

Reply:

I haven’t written much about your question, but let me make amends.  It’s a good one for sure.  I was brought up to believe that all criminality and wrongdoing reflect a kind of mental disease, and we do say things like “The man who stabbed that woman on the subway must have been crazy!” and “What a nutcase, to shoot someone just because he disagrees!”

If a stabber or the gunman were really nuts, we think, then he wouldn’t be to blame.  Or would he?  It’s true that all justifications for doing wrong reflect some sort of disordered thinking.   But are they disordered in that sense?

The traditional insanity defense tried to pin down the kind of disorder which absolves a person of blame, declaring that he would have to be incapable of telling the difference between right and wrong.  Unfortunately, this standard doesn’t pin down what it is supposed to pin down, because the idea of not being able to tell the difference between right and wrong is deeply ambiguous.

Let’s see whether we can untangle the matter by making some distinctions.  What does it mean to say that someone can’t tell the difference between right and wrong?

Suppose we take it to mean that a person understands all the words in a sentence like “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life” but just doesn’t know that the sentence is true.  I don’t think this is possible:  There are no such people.  If this were what the insanity defense meant, it would be nonsensical.

But there are other cases.  First, here are two cases in which a person is clearly not culpable for wrong acts.

• Perhaps he is so profoundly impaired that he doesn’t know the meaning of the words in the sentence.  It is unlikely that such a person would have enough mentality to act at all, but if he did, and committed wrong, then he should certainly not be held responsible for it.  On the other hand, he should be institutionalized.
• Or perhaps he suffers such grave delusions that he cannot recognize what is actually the case.  For instance, he may understand perfectly well that it is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life, but he mistakes the man whom he kills for an escaped lion, which must be slain to protect others.  Such a person is not culpable, but again, he should be institutionalized, both for his own protection and for that of others. This, I think, is the sort of case to which the so-called insanity defense was meant to be applied, but it is very narrow.

Now here are four cases in which a person should be viewed as culpable for wrong acts, even though some might deny it.

• Perhaps the person understands the basic moral rules, but does not grasp some of their obvious their corollaries.  For example, he might know it is wrong to kill, but be confused about whether it is wrong to allow an injured person to die and do nothing to help.  Even though there is such a thing as innocent error in hard cases, we rightly demand better moral understanding than that.  Thus in most cases, such persons are culpable.
• Or perhaps he would grasp the wrong of his deed if only he thought about it, but alas, he doesn’t think about it -- either because the deed is habitual, or because he has fallen into passion.  An example of habitual inattention is that he has done so much petty pilfering that he no longer gives it a thought.  This is a vice, and it is culpable.  An example of distraction due to passion is that when he finds a man in bed with his wife, he falls into a rage and kills him.  This too is culpable, although it not so bad as killing in cold blood, because the provocation is so extreme.
• Or perhaps he knows at some level that he is doing wrong, but tries to persuade himself that he doesn’t.  We should all be familiar with this sort of self-deception.  Who among us has never made an excuse for something he knew, deep down, to be wrong?  Unfortunately, depraved ideologies teach denial and make it more extreme.  For example, nothing is more common than for a person in the grip of a corrupt worldview than to think “I may do evil for the sake of good.”  Wrong for which we make excuses is still entirely culpable.
• Or perhaps he is a sociopath – he knows full well that he is doing wrong, but lacks normal inhibitions against it and normal feelings of sorriness about it.  Contrary to common opinion, a sociopath does have a conscience, because conscience is knowledge, and he has that.  What he lacks is remorse, a feeling which accompanies guilty knowledge in normal persons, but not in him.   In fact, just because sociopaths do have an idea of right and wrong, they sometimes work pretty hard to represent their actions to themselves and others as just:  “Of course I took his car.  How else was I supposed to get home, man?”  Interestingly, some sociopaths are aware that there is something wrong with them, or missing in them.  They realize that they ought to feel inhibitions and remorse, and even work at controlling themselves, whether just to fit in, or even to be more nearly normal.  At any rate, wrong done through lack of normal inhibitions and feelings is still culpable. 

Finally, here are two cases in which a person may or may not be culpable, or may be culpable to a greater or lesser degree.

• Perhaps the person knows that he is doing wrong, but is incapable of controlling his compulsions.  As though by itself, his hand grasps a knife and plunges it into another, even though he is trying to keep the act from happening.  Such a person may have varying degrees of culpability, because to have literally no control over one’s impulses is very rare.  Another issue in determining his culpability is how he got this way.  For example, if he fell into his condition because of habitual abuse of drugs, then he is indirectly responsible, because he shouldn’t have abused them in the first place.  In any case, he needs to be locked up.
• Or perhaps he doesn’t know he is doing wrong because he isn’t aware of his actions at all.  As in the last case, if this condition results from his own prior actions -- for instance, if he is too drunk to know he is drunk – then he is culpable, because he should not have become drunk.  But if his ignorance of his actions results from, say, a brain injury, then he is not culpable, but should be institutionalized.  Then again, suppose he has medicine for a mental disorder, but refuses to take it.  Even if he is not responsible for the disorder, to some degree he may be responsible for failure to take his medicine.

So most criminals are to blame.  Only a few rare ones are not, but even they should be restrained, whether in a prison or a mental institution.

People of a certain widespread persuasion think that because of the unequal distribution of wealth, no criminals are to blame.  They suppose that crime isn’t due to sin, but to capitalism.  For example, they make excuses for burglars because houses are so expensive these days.  You can work out for yourself into which of the cases I’ve discussed these ideologues fall.