Judging the Mentally ill:
I'm Personally Responsible


     There is a wide variety of distinct human behaviors, a subset of which are considered by societies or individuals unacceptable. Judging a person's behavior is reasonable, but passing those judgements onto that person may not be.

     The laws of a society decide what behaviors are required, accepted, and prohibited for its citizens. In the United States, the act of murder is criminal, but mental illness is a legally recognized defense. Actions aren't hard to objectively judge because their effects can be measured and described, but objectively judging people is difficult because an individual's motivations lie in the mind, a place which defies simplistic understanding.

     Psychology is the study of the mind and human behavior, and experimentation is its core method. Suppose you took two children who had never seen a large body of water; A and B. You repeatedly place A into a wading pool with other children who are all having fun and enjoying themselves. You repeatedly place B into the rushing water of a river and force his head underneath the waves, causing him to feel the instinctual terror of drowning. After 10 repetitions with each child over 2 months, you blindfold both children and take them to the shallow end of a swimming pool, then you take off the blindfolds and dump them in the water. One child is fine with it but the other is screaming and terrified. He screams because he associates being in water with being assaulted. We can say it is unreasonable for a child to scream when placed in a swimming pool easily enough, but the way in which he learned that behavior is a product of the natural and normal functioning of his mind.

     Motivation is not exclusively volitional, nor is it exclusively predisposed by mental illness, its identity lies in a mixture of these and other factors. Relating to the mentally ill can be like befriending a porcupine. Do not blame the porcupine for having sharp quills, but do not impale yourself on them either. Recognize the separation between his intentions and his effects, try to be a little more accepting, but judge actions in their own right. If you do pass judgements on people, know they are predicated by your level of understanding and lifetimes are not easily understood.