[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by slap_j

Are you being technical or colloquial? Because yeah, in the latter sense there are "insane" people who are fully culpable. But in the technical, legal sense of the word, not every mental illness is considered insanity. Someone with antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy), for instance, would be considered legally sane (as would someone with bipolar disorder). Someone with hallucinations and severely disordered thinking would be insane. Executing such a person would not be just because they cannot have a mens rea. Of course maybe I am just prejudiced and there is some other legit juridical understanding but it isn't obvious to me.

I didn't mean it in the strictest legal sense. I meant out of their head for the most part. As Thrash was discussing any form of mental illness.

But nowhere does being insane preclude one from being evil and malicious to boot. I have a hard time with saying nobody insane should be executed because frankly, the line is not fixed. Why is psychopathy not considered insanity? What guarantees that that continues to be the case? What if a person with hallucinations murders someone unrelated to their hallucinations? It could happen... I am just saying it seems very odd to make a hard and fast rule here, when every situation is so very different.

I understand what you're saying but how does going down the mercy killing road not lead to the acceptance of euthanasia? Or abortion if the child is going to be born with a severe defect?

Not really.

If you have to isolate someone from society for society's protection, how you are going to do this poses a serious issue. Whereas euthanasia and life with a defect are an issue that are a tragedy, they are not an end result of society needing to protect itself. One does not have the option of letting things play out naturally here.

I think the key issue here is this: Is there a fate worse than death? If there is, torturing someone in an attempt to make them "better" while locking them away seems crueler than execution to me. Then again, I also think in our current prison system I might rather be dead than live through a life sentence myself.

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by BillSPrestonEsq

Why is psychopathy not considered insanity?

You'll have to ask a lawyer for a real answer but my guess is that it's because psychopaths know what they're doing. That's why they're generally good at manipulating people.

What if a person with hallucinations murders someone unrelated to their hallucinations?

Then they would be fully responsible.

Whereas euthanasia and life with a defect are an issue that are a tragedy, they are not an end result of society needing to protect itself.

But if we can use suffering as the criterion for cutting human life short then it would be arbitrary to allow it in one situation but not another. So, there is no more justification for executing someone just because it is less cruel than being pumped full of anti-psychotics and left to languish in a cell than there is for killing someone because they're infirm, delirious, and in unrelenting pain. We just have to look for alternatives to make it better.

[doulos14]

As an example, this just came up on my news site

BBC News - Norway massacre: Breivik declared insane

This is the guy who massacred 77 students and injured many more. They're saying he's a paranoid schizophrenic, but yet he states his motivation is the prevention of Muslim takeover. I'm no psychiatrist, but it seems odd that he "could be in his own delusions" yet quote something as specific and currently relevant as a Muslim revolution.

[Rainer.]

People who suffer paranoid delusions are still aware of the world around them. They just don't process and act on that information "normally", but end up with abnormal beliefs and behaviors to stimulus. As far as I've heard, he does not suffer hallucinations, which do tend to remove a person from the "real world", which is what you seem to be talking about.

As far as I've heard, Breivik was declared insane, but the court is still to decide if he's guilty of murder, which I am sure he will be charged with.