@Dianathy @average_random_joe @ned there is a school of thought that not irrationally considers that people who are mentally ill should not be held criminally responsible for their actions. Short of some sort of actual psychosis, I think we have to be very careful along those lines. If you had a voice in your head telling you to kill your family, would you do it? Or would you have a strong enough moral foundation that just being told to do a thing by a voice in your head isn't enough to make you go off and do that thing?
There's a lot of people who end up getting urges to do things. I don't know about you, but I get urges to do things all the time that I don't do. If I see a really pretty girl walking down the street with big tits, part of me wants to go and just start doing all kinds of unspeakable things, but I don't because I'm not a psychopath. My moral sense is stronger than whatever urge I get. They're more mundane things too. Maybe I see someone walking down the street with an ice cream cone, and I would love an ice cream cone. Do I walk up and steal the ice cream cone? Of course not because I'm not a psychopath. If I'm sitting in front of a big glass window, and I just think that it would be really cool if someone threw a rock through the window and smashed it and you got to see all the glass raining down, I don't grab a rock and throw it at the window because I'm not a psychopath.
Obviously there are people who are psychopaths out there, people who just aren't wired to have any kind of internal moral sense and they don't have the sort of self-control to exist in a society. Maybe for those people you can say they don't need any responsibility for their actions because their brains are literally wired in such a way that they can't take responsibility for their actions. But for the vast majority of people, including the vast majority of people with mental illnesses, that's just not the case.
On a tangent for a minute, there are people who go off their meds, and go off and do something unspeakable. I think that when that happens, they should be held criminally responsible because they made the choice to stop taking their meds while they were still on their meds. If you have something like an Elliot Rodgers who was prescribed antipsychotics and then just refuse to take them, if that person then goes off and does something unspeakable while off their meds, I think you should hold the medicated individual responsible for the actions of the unmedicated individual.
There's a lot of people who end up getting urges to do things. I don't know about you, but I get urges to do things all the time that I don't do. If I see a really pretty girl walking down the street with big tits, part of me wants to go and just start doing all kinds of unspeakable things, but I don't because I'm not a psychopath. My moral sense is stronger than whatever urge I get. They're more mundane things too. Maybe I see someone walking down the street with an ice cream cone, and I would love an ice cream cone. Do I walk up and steal the ice cream cone? Of course not because I'm not a psychopath. If I'm sitting in front of a big glass window, and I just think that it would be really cool if someone threw a rock through the window and smashed it and you got to see all the glass raining down, I don't grab a rock and throw it at the window because I'm not a psychopath.
Obviously there are people who are psychopaths out there, people who just aren't wired to have any kind of internal moral sense and they don't have the sort of self-control to exist in a society. Maybe for those people you can say they don't need any responsibility for their actions because their brains are literally wired in such a way that they can't take responsibility for their actions. But for the vast majority of people, including the vast majority of people with mental illnesses, that's just not the case.
On a tangent for a minute, there are people who go off their meds, and go off and do something unspeakable. I think that when that happens, they should be held criminally responsible because they made the choice to stop taking their meds while they were still on their meds. If you have something like an Elliot Rodgers who was prescribed antipsychotics and then just refuse to take them, if that person then goes off and does something unspeakable while off their meds, I think you should hold the medicated individual responsible for the actions of the unmedicated individual.
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