Are people that commit crime like atrocious murders seriously mentally ill or evil?

Question

This is not intended to be disrespectful to anyone with a mental illness Just a debate I had with a friend

Answer 1

I think we all have it in us but it definitly takes something to snap to actually do anything atrocious,so yes definitly mental. I think.

Answer 2

Most are evil-the mental illness part comes when they use it as an excuse for their crime

Answer 3

Maybe, but it's also something you can be taught if you grow up in such an environment.

Answer 4

evil ....... i would say mentally ill but its too convienent!!

Answer 5

I just checked a book out of the library today that talked about how every one is capable of murder not just the insane.   I haven't finished the book and actually have only read the first two chapters but you might want to give it a look. It is called "The Murderer Next Door, why the mind is designed to kill" by David M, Buss.

Answer 6

You can be both or neither. I'm "normal", kind and loving, but if someone hurt my family I could probably also be a murderer.

Answer 7

can be either one. or both

Answer 8

either/or depends if you are left wing or right wing in your political outlook

Answer 9

They are crazy. Mentally ill people eat crayons and bang their heads into walls they don't kill people.

Answer 10

I think many are both evil & mentally ill.

Often damaged people do the most damage.

Answer 11

They aren't mentally ill.

That becomes an excuse for willingful acts of evil.

Answer 12

Mentally ill....What normal person would be capable of actually murdering someone?  The act is evil, but the person doing the deed is mentally ill.

Answer 13

No . Some are doing it for revenge ; profit ..or no reason other than meanness .

Answer 14

It's behaviour far outside what we consider acceptable or 'normal'

so in many ways such people must be mentally ill. Either deranged by a relationship gone wrong or putting a disturbed view on the value of possessions over human life

Answer 15

In most cases neither.  

They are either emotionally damaged or have been pushed too far.

Answer 16

Sometimes the two go hand in hand.

Answer 17

ill

If they were evil then they would be ill to be so.

Answer 18

That's why it needs a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether in fact the person is genuinely mentally ill.

If they are not, then maybe they have a psychopathic disorder.

Answer 19

mentally ill gone evil

makes me shiver thinking about  murderers

Answer 20

Some are mentally ill, some are evil, some are both.

Answer 21

I believe it's mental illness.

I still see the idea of "evil" as being a religious label.

The person that mentioned a psychopathic disorder may not have realised that that is considered to be a mental illness which can fall into many categories.

There are people who commit crime as a reaction and result of their upbringing and circumstances (neuroses). Then those who have something fundamentally wong with the physical workings of their brain/neural functions and commit crime because of this. (Psychoses).

That is a very broad overview and it is far more complicated than that, hence the reason that prisons and psychiatric hospitals are over-run.

I believe "evil" is a label given to people with a mental illness, usually perpetrated by the media.

Answer 22

The more is learnt about the brain and its functions then we will truly know. Brain scans already can show brain differences between so called normal brains and diseased brains, so as these become more sophisticated then our knowledge of the brain will be enhanced and then our view of some types of criminals will change with it.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stori...

Answer 23

Evil by the (nature of the word ) condescends a sense of horror and the deranged. We as the human race have been defining our mental conditions as normal and abnormal since we discovered cooked meat after the forest fire and began a regular diet of this new found delicacy only than could we determine what was good and what was bad.

We have come along way in the evolution of the mores of our societies we agree with Dan S when he stated"Mental illness is the reason for alot of evil but being mentally ill does not make you evil".

We also agree with Feline r when she stated that"The idea of evil was more of a religious label" in both of these views we can understand that the morals of a society determines if humans who commit atrocious acts of murder are mentally ill or evil.

Answer 24

they are mentally ill  evil is just an opinion it cant prove anything

Answer 25

Both are probably true.  But first you need to define what is evil and what is sane or insane.  That is the primary goal of society and religion.

My definition of evil is any act or person who is willing to sacrifice the welfare of others to improve their own.  A good act would be someone who is willing to sacrifice their own welfare to improve the lot of others AND those acts go against the moral code of their society.

The reasons for evil and good vary; the most common reason for evil is greed.  However in the case of a serial killer or mass murder or a torturer maybe only true evil applies.  Most serial killers have a sexual component to their crimes; they actually derive sexual satisfaction from their evil deeds.  In this way they are trying to improve their own welfare at the expense of others and going against the moral code of society.

A person who has problem with s*x and getting themselves off may have a mental illness, and as I mentioned most serial killers have sexual problems.  A doctor interviewed all the serial killers of the last 25 years and found that each one had been a victim of child abuse; often sexual.  So an evil act was committed on them to make them evil.  It damaged their thinking and that makes them mentally ill.

Dr. Evil may have been a fictional character, but he illustrates how someone can go from just greed to actually enjoying the act of being evil.  Again this is a part of greed; only it fulfills their own desires and it may not give them extra wealth or seem to otherwise improve their welfare, but they get pleasure out of being pure evil.  Most people would define this as being mentally ill.

Many mass murderers do the dirty deed because they are feeling great pain and want to spread that pain out to others in the mistaken belief that it will make their own pain less; again this is a case of evil where you are willing to sacrifice the welfare of others in an attempt to improve your own.  Needless to say few mass murders meet their goals, which is why many try to commit suicide and those who are too scared to kill themselves will resist the police in order to “commit suicide by cop.”  That too is an evil act because the person thinks more of themselves than the poor officer who has to kill them AND their action is against the moral codes of their society.  That is what makes the work of Dr. Kevorkian evil; if society accepted the idea of personal suicide though it no longer is an evil act.

Many people can be mentally ill and not evil.  I suffer from chronic depression, but otherwise I try to live my life as well as possible and to do the least harm and give as little misery to others.

Most mentally ill patients are so because of a lack of a hormone, brain neurotransmitter, or even a minor physical defect in the brain.  They have about an equal chance of becoming evil or good as anyone else; it depends on the damage and what it makes them do and what they do to try and improve their own welfare and how far they are willing to go and what moral codes they break along the way.

It is hard to say if a person who is evil is always mentally disturbed, but being mentally ill can be one explanation for being evil.  It does not mean that mentally ill people will become evil.  In my case the most “evil” act that I ever did was try to commit suicide.  I did not take into account the grief that it would cause others or the mental harm that it would cause the family member who discovered my body.  I was willing to sacrifice their welfare for what I thought would improve my own welfare.  Of course I did not feel like that at the time, but if you look at the act of suicide and remove the emotion (very hard to do) then you can see what I mean.  Also the act of suicide is against the moral code of society and the moral code of my family.

I think the natural state of a person or animal is to try and improve their own welfare at the expense of others.  Even an herbivore can be “evil” by eating all the plants that it does.  The difference between humans is that we introduce the idea of morals into this.  For a vegan it is immoral to kill an animal just to stay alive, it is not immoral to kill a plant.  To an omnivore like me it is moral to kill both.  Technically that would make it an evil act.  If I have hamburger it sure seems like an evil act from the viewpoint of the cow who is slaughtered for my dinner.  So the question of the laws and moral code of society come into play.  Evil has to have a moral component to it as well and that is a measure of the welfare of others.  Trying to get ahead at work by working hard is not an evil act; yes you are improving your welfare at the expense of others—but you are not actually harming their welfare, you are only improving your own.  If it costs that person their job then it is still not an evil act because an evil act requires INTENT to benefit at the expense of others.

Mental illness is the reason for a lot of evil, but being mentally ill does not make you evil.  Evil people always have a mental disturbance of some sort that makes them ignore the morals of society in their quest to better their own welfare.  Their brain may not be damaged; but the lack of morals that lets them commit evil deeds can be considered the act of a mentally ill person.

It all depends on your definition of mental illness and if you are willing to include going against the moral code of society.  In this case the murder of a man and removing his heart in an Aztec religious ceremony may not be an evil one.  It is acceptable to the morals of that society, but not acceptable to our own morals.  In the end the question also comes down to the moral code of the society they are in.  It is not against our moral code to get promoted at your job; as long as you do it in a fair fashion and don’t cheat.

Personally I think that anyone who is evil is mentally ill, OR not trained in the proper code by their society.  A chimpanzee will happily rip off the arms of a lesser monkey for a meal but that is not an evil act the chimpanzee doesn’t go against the laws of his society and is only trying to get a meal; if you or I did it though we would be considered evil.  Do you see how muddy these waters are and how the key factors of morals and society come into play?

There is a fable about a prince who was the favorite of the town and who did good works.  One day he left town to hunt in the forest and the evil witch poisoned the town’s well making anyone who drank from it insane.  When the prince came back he was shocked by all the insanity he saw.  The villagers were shocked by HIS insanity (he was going against the moral codes of that damaged society).  When the prince drank from the well he too went insane and the people of the town were happy because their prince had been restored to sanity.  The definition of sane and insane is what is acceptable by society.  Human sacrifice is evil in our society, but in many primitive societies it was not.

Here is an interesting question is being homosexual evil or not?  It goes against the morals of many societies; but if it is done between two consenting adults then no else’s welfare is hurt, in fact they are helping the welfare of each other.  That makes it NOT an evil act; even though it is against the moral code of society.  In the case of a non-violent protest that goes against the moral code of society, but it is not intended to be an evil act and the people doing the protest do not intend to harm anyone else’s welfare.  That makes disobeying the moral code not an evil act.  To be evil the act has to be both harming the welfare of others and against the moral code of society.

To be evil you must have the act of degrading the welfare of others to improve your own and that act must be against the laws and moral code of the society.  Going against the moral codes of society is considered to be an insane act as my little fable showed.  So you could say that homosexuals are insane, but they are not evil.  Now I know a lot of people who would argue with the claim to them being insane, homosexual practice has been accepted by past societies and it is hardly a new action; it was around in the times of Ancient Greece and Rome.  The reason why we see so much of it today is because society is more forgiving and allowing those who come forward to not be as heavily persecuted.  In Iran admitting you are homosexual calls for the death penalty; it is evil in their society.

Therefore the definition of what is evil and what is not can change.  Thomas Jefferson owned slaves; he felt guilty about it and freed his slaves after his death.  He even tried to outlaw slavery in the early drafts of the US Constitution.  But, slavery was not against the moral codes of his society and the requirements for a cheap labor force that agriculture needed kept it from becoming an evil act.  In current society there is no question that slavery is evil.

Is it insane to own a slave or not?  If it is against the moral codes of that society then it is.  So Thomas Jefferson was not insane or evil, but a modern white slaver is both.  It depends on the society, the time in its development, its own moral code and if the act degrades the welfare of others.

I am not offended by your question it is an interesting debate that religion has been trying to decide on for years.  Taking the lord’s name in vain is against the moral code of most Christian societies, but does it harm the welfare of others?  In fact it does, the intent is usually to degrade and insult that person and so decrease their own welfare.  That is what makes it a sin, it needs both components.

I am not a religious person yet I still support religion because of the moral code it teaches.  We need religion to create and help force that moral code.  Society can pass laws to help enforce the moral code, but the business of government should be to try to m