There are many different kinds of insanity. But anybody who can murder another human being is mentally ill in some way.
Florida Teen kills Parents and then hosts a facebook party
- Thread starter PlainSimpleJoel
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Exactly. It's pretty obvious that war, law enforcement, self defense and so on are an entirely different topic.
According to you, perhaps. But not according to psychiatry, and not according to the law.
Well, then I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison. If he's capable of murdering his own parents, nobody is safe with him on the loose.
Perhaps. My point is that, bottom line, killing someone is killing someone. While in war, killing can be justified. However, what I quoted stated that "anybody who can murder another human being is mentally ill". Philosophically speaking, where is the line drawn where killing someone is considered mentally ill?
You might say that the soldiers were just doing a job. That is true. But what about a hitman or a hired assassin (which, I guess, are kinda the same thing)? Are they are just doing a job or are they mentally ill as well?
Upon what foundation do you base this ridiculous statement?
The line is drawn along circumstance, motive et cetera. If you kill someone in self-defense, I wouldn't call you a murderer. If a cop or soldier kills someone in the line of duty, I wouldn't call him a murderer. If a cop or soldier kills a defenseless civilian out of some motive other than the line of duty, then he is a murderer and he is mentally ill.
Somebody who hires himself out to kill for money? Obviously mentally ill.
^I don't think you're qualified to talk about who is and who is not "mentally ill" unless you are in the field of psychology or psychiatry.
I think you're having a very difficult time relating to other people who've had different life experiences than you have. You're drawing arbitrary lines and then assigning definitions to words that you feel comfortable with, but are not accurate. Again: "people who do things I find morally repugnant" does not equate to "people who are mentally ill".
I think you're having a very difficult time relating to other people who've had different life experiences than you have. You're drawing arbitrary lines and then assigning definitions to words that you feel comfortable with, but are not accurate. Again: "people who do things I find morally repugnant" does not equate to "people who are mentally ill".
^^ Why?
I don't see that this should be such a difficult concept. Anybody who is so lacking in empathy or conscience as to kill another human being (or is so lacking in self control or whatever) is mentally ill. If they were mentally healthy, they wouldn't have done it.
I don't see that this should be such a difficult concept. Anybody who is so lacking in empathy or conscience as to kill another human being (or is so lacking in self control or whatever) is mentally ill. If they were mentally healthy, they wouldn't have done it.
What about a soldier who laughs as he runs over enemy soldiers with his tank and then brags about it on message boards? He killed in the line of duty but I think his actions are rather disturbing.
Obviously mentally ill. He not only lacks empathy and conscience, but actually enjoys killing.
You're still confusing sociopathy with psychosis. If everyone who killed were mentally ill, none of them would ever be tried for murder. That's how you are diluting the term to a catch-all for something you can't comprehend someone doing.
Before the days of study of the mind, we called mental illness "evil."
Some people are evil, but we can't figure out how to deal with them so we change the label to something new and try to fix it because evil scares the daylight out of us.
Not saying this kid is evil, but until we know more, the title works just as well as "mentally ill." imho
Some people are evil, but we can't figure out how to deal with them so we change the label to something new and try to fix it because evil scares the daylight out of us.
Not saying this kid is evil, but until we know more, the title works just as well as "mentally ill." imho
I think you're using "mentally ill" to mean deviating from the norm in a way that's very harmful to society (i.e. they commit murder), but I'd have to disagree. Empathy varies from person to person and there is no specific threshold at which the lack of it becomes a mental illness. What's more, some people would do those things without lacking empathy. Many people would do them without deviating from the norm – I mean, the average person would kill if he's got the means, motive, and a way to get away with it.
Murder isn't something that's acceptable in our social norms, and you might broadly call it social insanity, but it's not personal insanity in any shape or form – too many people are capable of murder to think of it that way.
And the worst thing... How are you certain that the social norms that we follow are the right and best social norms? People who disagree with them, or decide not to follow them, are not insane. Some people might believe in a society that accepts some forms of murder, agree or disagree with them, that doesn't make them insane.
P.S. In this case, I'd have to agree. If you are willing to lose your parents and the rest of your life for a party, you have mental issues. Even if they are not a mental illness, I still consider this kid mentally ill and mentally unfit to be part of the society. And like psychopathy should, this should probably increase the sentence.
I don't think the average person would kill even if he had the means, the motive and a way to get away for it. The average person would feel guilt if they killed and I believe that that is enough to stop the average person from committing murder.
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I'm not confusing anything with anything. I didn't give a specific diagnosis, I just said he was mentally ill. I'll let those who study him figure out exactly what the malfunction was.
I disagree that the average person would kill if he could get away with it. If people were that dysfunctional, civilization could not exist. Murder and violence may get all the attention, but the good in people must outweigh the bad by orders of magnitude for society to function.
Again, I disagree. Most people, by far, will never kill another person.
It's not about social norms. Social norms can be sane or insane. This is about how people relate to each other. Anybody who is so lacking in empathy that they can kill in cold blood, or so full of hate that they can kill without remorse, or so full of uncontrollable anger that they can kill in a rage and so on is suffering a major malfunction in their brain; i.e. they are mentally ill.
That's exactly what I'm saying. But I'm also saying that it's not unique to this particular situation or this particular dysfunction.
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