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When someone does horrific acts it is often said they must have a mental illness, but does that always have to be the case? While admittedly some of the most extreme examples, do you think the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot were mentally ill to do what they did? Or is it really not always necessary?
Or let me put it this way: If we could make Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot face charges today, would you be okay with them getting the death penalty or being able to use the insanity defense and spending their lives in a mental institute?
It depends on your definition of "horrific act" and "mental illness".
Intentionally harmful acts without evidence of remorse inherently demonstrate some defect of empathy, I think. Acts of carelessness or incompetence may simply reflect lack of character / virtue / knowledge / discipline and/or ability.
No. Mental illness generally has to do with irrationality or functional disorders. You can be irrational and not mentally ill, but for the most part various mental illnesses are defined by the way in which they make the person irrational or infringes on their ability to function.
Doing horrific things is not necessarily irrational. They're not even necessarily antisocial, depending on what they are and who they affect and why they're being done. And they're certainly not a sign of poor functioning. Look at Hitler. He lead some horrific things, but genocide, while horrific, is not necessarily irrational in an empirical sense. And he did it in a very high-functioning and efficient way. And if it's done with the idea of benefiting ones own group, then it's not even really antisocial. But it's still wrong by contemporary standards of morality and horrific.
Of course, to a certain extent, it depends on how we define "mentally ill." I, personally, like to avoid morality-based, or philosophy-based definitions of mental illness, opting more for functional definitions, which can include empirically irrational behavior. Otherwise "mental illness" becomes a political definition, which is an enormous can of worms.
You can be evil -- in fact very, very evil -- and not be mentally ill. Dehumanization and the lack of empathy and conscience, are hall marks of evil. That can be "medicalized" into a condition where we call people pschyopaths or sociopaths. But it is not mental illness as most people would define it because the horrific acts are rationalized according to (flawed) logic, then planned and executed with little thought to the consequences for the victims. These are people who are, in the most basic term, born without a conscience. They aren't mentally ill. But they are evil.
There are some people that do evil things spur of the moment, out of anger or fear. They're usually not evil. There are others who are calculated and manipulative and plan the act. They are definitely evil.
You can be evil -- in fact very, very evil -- and not be mentally ill. Dehumanization and the lack of empathy and conscience, are hall marks of evil. That can be "medicalized" into a condition where we call people pschyopaths or sociopaths. But it is not mental illness as most people would define it because the horrific acts are rationalized according to (flawed) logic, then planned and executed with little thought to the consequences for the victims. These are people who are, in the most basic term, born without a conscience. They aren't mentally ill. But they are evil.
Unfortunately this sounds like a young man who used to live in my hometown almost 25 years ago. He was evil !! First it started with "for fun" killing a neighbor's pet rats. Later he would kill 3 cats, a dog and his aunt's own pet birds. All of this was planned !! In those days the law and even his most of own family really didn't care about this sort of thing as the law was like "..so he killed some cats, rats and birds..whatever !! while his own family had this "boys will be boys" thing and really thought he would somehow outgrow this behavior.Even the aunt whose birds he had killed took it like "...well he had just broke up with his girlfriend so he was having a bad day and besides I can always get more birds !!" However nobody was laughing though on a warm spring day back in 1991 when the body of his 7 year old brother was found. Not only did he kill his own brother but actually bragged to his friends about what he did and even going as far as calling up a local radio station and telling the disc jockey on the air "...guess what I did today ?? I killed my little brother and it felt great !! So cool !!". He is still in prison today. This guy was truly evil !!
Not mental illness. It's a desire for power. It is a lack of compassion. They have no conscience at all to know that gee, torturing other humans, oppressing them is plain wrong. Lack of ethics. They cannot understand the pain and suffering of other people because they have a wealthy, luxurious comfortable life. Other people are feeling the pain, not them.
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