Mental illness and moral responsibility?

[DarkLight]

This is obviously a complicated issue, but how does mental illness play into moral responsibility? I’m not thinking of the extremes (where someone has completely lost touch with reality), but of the more common types - depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc. It’s difficult for me to understand because it seems clearly wrong to say such a person doesn’t bear responsibility for their actions, but it also seems wrong to say they are guilty for having a mental illness. And in some senses these seem to be disorders that directly affect the will - e.g. depression can affect someone’s ability to motivate themselves to do anything, even if they know that thing to be their duty.

 

[sw85]

This is obviously a complicated issue, but how does mental illness play into moral responsibility? I’m not thinking of the extremes (where someone has completely lost touch with reality), but of the more common types - depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc. It’s difficult for me to understand because it seems clearly wrong to say such a person doesn’t bear responsibility for their actions, but it also seems wrong to say they are guilty for having a mental illness. And in some senses these seem to be disorders that directly affect the will - e.g. depression can affect someone’s ability to motivate themselves to do anything, even if they know that thing to be their duty.

Any mental illness has at least the potential to impair full knowledge of the act or its sinfulness or full consent and so to reduce culpability for the act.

 

[DarkLight]

Any mental illness has at least the potential to impair full knowledge of the act or its sinfulness or full consent and so to reduce culpability for the act.

How would we be able to judge? I mean not just outside, but from the standpoint of the person themselves? It seems difficult, from the stance of “I know I should do x but I’m not sure if I’m capable of doing x or not.” I know well enough that it’s almost impossible to tell depression and anxiety from laziness and cowardice, from many perspectives.

 

[sw85]

How would we be able to judge? I mean not just outside, but from the standpoint of the person themselves? It seems difficult, from the stance of “I know I should do x but I’m not sure if I’m capable of doing x or not.” I know well enough that it’s almost impossible to tell depression and anxiety from laziness and cowardice, from many perspectives.

Judging people’s culpability for sins doesn’t really fall to us.

 

[Nate13]

A priest could help a person walk through it and determine whether the sin they committed was mortal or venial depending on their ability to choose freely. In reality though its just good practice to go to confession ever time you commit a sin that is considered a grave sin.

 

[DarkLight]

A priest could help a person walk through it and determine whether the sin they committed was mortal or venial depending on their ability to choose freely. In reality though its just good practice to go to confession ever time you commit a sin that is considered a grave sin.

I’m not sure that really covers it…the question I’ve been hitting is usually not “was x mortal or venial” but “was x a sin?” After all, if one reasonably could not perform x, even if it would ordinarily be a duty, one cannot have committed a sin in not doing x. And it seems the approach would be quite different in correcting the behavior depending on whether x is a sin or not!

 

[Nate13]

I’m not sure that really covers it…the question I’ve been hitting is usually not “was x mortal or venial” but “was x a sin?” After all, if one reasonably could not perform x, even if it would ordinarily be a duty, one cannot have committed a sin in not doing x. And it seems the approach would be quite different in correcting the behavior depending on whether x is a sin or not!

Don’t look at the act in the context of the person’s mental health at first. First determine whether the act is a sin or not just based on the action or lack of action objectively. Whether the person is mentally ill or not the action remains disordered.

From the Catechism:
scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a6.htm

IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith."60

As you can see here if a person cannot be said to be morally responsible for the act that doesn’t make the act any less of a sin. What it does do though is lessen that person’s culpability for committing the act possibly to the point where they are not culpable at all. In other words you know its a sin, its just a matter of figuring out how culpable someone is for the sin.

Culpability really only matters as far as figuring out whether a sin is mortal or venial and figuring out whether someone exercised their own free will in a decision.

 

[DarkLight]

Don’t look at the act in the context of the person’s mental health at first. First determine whether the act is a sin or not just based on the action or lack of action objectively. Whether the person is mentally ill or not the action remains disordered.

From the Catechism:
scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a6.htm

As you can see here if a person cannot be said to be morally responsible for the act that doesn’t make the act any less of a sin. What it does do though is lessen that person’s culpability for committing the act possibly to the point where they are not culpable at all. In other words you know its a sin, its just a matter of figuring out how culpable someone is for the sin.

Culpability really only matters as far as figuring out whether a sin is mortal or venial and figuring out whether someone exercised their own free will in a decision.

I’m not sure how helpful this is. Look at it from the perspective of the person struggling with mental illness, say depression. Suppose you have a duty x that you promised to do. But you’re feeling really bad that day and just can’t seem to pull yourself out of bed that morning (a fairly common effect of severe depression). You’re not sure if you couldn’t do it because of the depression, or if you were just being lazy. Wouldn’t your response change depending on which one of those was right?

I’m also not sure if the “it’s always a sin” thing makes sense here. If I promise to go help out a friend who is having a hard time, and then just decide not to go, I’ve committed a sin in breaking my promise. However, if I make the same promise and then find myself through an accident unable to fulfill my promise, then it doesn’t seem that I have committed a sin at all.

 

[Nate13]

I’m not sure how helpful this is. Look at it from the perspective of the person struggling with mental illness, say depression. Suppose you have a duty x that you promised to do. But you’re feeling really bad that day and just can’t seem to pull yourself out of bed that morning (a fairly common effect of severe depression). You’re not sure if you couldn’t do it because of the depression, or if you were just being lazy. Wouldn’t your response change depending on which one of those was right?

I’m also not sure if the “it’s always a sin” thing makes sense here. If I promise to go help out a friend who is having a hard time, and then just decide not to go, I’ve committed a sin in breaking my promise. However, if I make the same promise and then find myself through an accident unable to fulfill my promise, then it doesn’t seem that I have committed a sin at all.

What happened is still disordered though correct? Just because you obviously have a good reason for why you were not able to fulfill the promise does not leave the promise any less unfulfilled. The disorder still remains and its still a sin. The thing that changes though depending on moral responsibility is culpability or how much to blame someone is for what they have/haven’t done.

In the case you mentioned where you got in an accident and were unable to fulfill the promise, it would be pretty easy to say you were not morally responsible at all for that and you had no culpability for the sin/remaining disorder.

Mental health is always so much harder to judge than physical health though. If you physically aren’t capable of doing something its much easier for people to measure that than if your mentally incapable of getting up and performing a task. I’m not a doctor so I can’t tell you how much a person’s judgement is being affected by depression. If you would classify someone’s depression as severe I would think it would be very hard for that person’s actions to be considered entirely of their own volition though and very hard to consider any of their actions mortal sins.

Personally if I had severe depression and went out and committed a serious sin like adultery or something I would feel the need to go and confess that. The grace of the confessional is always a welcome thing even if it turns out that the sin could not be considered mortal.

 

[DarkLight]

What happened is still disordered though correct? Just because you obviously have a good reason for why you were not able to fulfill the promise does not leave the promise any less unfulfilled. The disorder still remains and its still a sin. The thing that changes though depending on moral responsibility is culpability or how much to blame someone is for what they have/haven’t done.

In the case you mentioned where you got in an accident and were unable to fulfill the promise, it would be pretty easy to say you were not morally responsible at all for that and you had no culpability for the sin/remaining disorder.

Mental health is always so much harder to judge than physical health though. If you physically aren’t capable of doing something its much easier for people to measure that than if your mentally incapable of getting up and performing a task. I’m not a doctor so I can’t tell you how much a person’s judgement is being affected by depression. If you would classify someone’s depression as severe I would think it would be very hard for that person’s actions to be considered entirely of their own volition though and very hard to consider any of their actions mortal sins.

Personally if I had severe depression and went out and committed a serious sin like adultery or something I would feel the need to go and confess that. The grace of the confessional is always a welcome thing even if it turns out that the sin could not be considered mortal.

If you’re going to define sin that way then it would seem we’re all sinning constantly! I just can’t understand this definition…it would seem that just about every act I do and everything that happens to me that has some bad consequence would have some sin involved. That may be the definition given but it doesn’t seem like a useful framework for approaching the issue in this case - I can’t see how we should respond to something that appears so unavoidable.

 

[Nate13]

If you’re going to define sin that way then it would seem we’re all sinning constantly! I just can’t understand this definition…it would seem that just about every act I do and everything that happens to me that has some bad consequence would have some sin involved. That may be the definition given but it doesn’t seem like a useful framework for approaching the issue in this case - I can’t see how we should respond to something that appears so unavoidable.

Can you give an example of something you didn’t think was a sin, but would now view as a sin? Lets make sure we are on the same page. I do think many people wrongly consider venial sins to not be sins at all sometimes.

 

[DarkLight]

Can you give an example of something you didn’t think was a sin, but would now view as a sin? Lets make sure we are on the same page. I do think many people wrongly consider venial sins to not be sins at all sometimes.

I’d have to think about that. The frustration here is, say, the day I promised to finish a project and then got really sick and couldn’t do anything would be a sin under that definition. I think we have a terminology issue here, reading back over the thread. The way I was taught was that in order for something to be a sin you had to be culpable for it. So the concept at issue is really culpability - it seems to me that I would react differently if I was culpable in breaking my promise than if I was not culpable (let’s say for the sake of argument that the illness was severe enough to physically prevent fulfilling the promise). Hence the question of how to approach a case of mental illness when you are unsure of your own culpability - not just from the perspective of confession and forgiveness, but from the perspective of correction and self-improvement.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Mental illness definitely can reduce culpability. But what if the action is objectively sinful, should we still confess it?

An example in my own life, I sometimes commit sins of omission in social contexts due to fear of making a mistake. For example being too shy to introduce myself when that would be the proper thing to do. Is this matter for confession?

 

[DarkLight]

Mental illness definitely can reduce culpability. But what if the action is objectively sinful, should we still confess it?

An example in my own life, I sometimes commit sins of omission in social contexts due to fear of making a mistake. For example being too shy to introduce myself when that would be the proper thing to do. Is this matter for confession?

I’m actually not that concerned about confession here - though I’d rather avoid a result that has one running to confession all the time. What’s more at issue is how one would go about correcting the error. If one is culpable, it seems the proper course would be one that focuses on correcting the will. If one is not, that seems entirely the wrong approach.

 

[Jennet]

Judging people’s culpability for sins doesn’t really fall to us.

Amen to that.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I’m actually not that concerned about confession here - though I’d rather avoid a result that has one running to confession all the time. What’s more at issue is how one would go about correcting the error. If one is culpable, it seems the proper course would be one that focuses on correcting the will. If one is not, that seems entirely the wrong approach.

What about another scenario: Where you aren’t culpable for the action, but you are culpable for not taking steps to fix the problem.

For example, the solution might not have anything to do with controlling your will. The solution may require receiving therapy or doing self-help, which don’t directly work to control the will.

 

[Nate13]

I’d have to think about that. The frustration here is, say, the day I promised to finish a project and then got really sick and couldn’t do anything would be a sin under that definition.

Actually I would argue that was not a sin. I assume the people you were working with were all working on the assumption that you would be there unless you had a good reason. When you made the promise were you making a promise that you would show up even if you were incredibly sick? No of course not. That was an unsaid assumption made by all concerning your promise right? Thus no sin was being committed since you didn’t actually promise to show up when you were incredibly sick.

Do you have another example?

I think we have a terminology issue here, reading back over the thread. The way I was taught was that in order for something to be a sin you had to be culpable for it. So the concept at issue is really culpability - it seems to me that I would react differently if I was culpable in breaking my promise than if I was not culpable (let’s say for the sake of argument that the illness was severe enough to physically prevent fulfilling the promise). Hence the question of how to approach a case of mental illness when you are unsure of your own culpability - not just from the perspective of confession and forgiveness, but from the perspective of correction and self-improvement.

Yeah I don’t think we disagree on the implications of this so much as how its described. If either the object of the action, the intention/ends of the action, or the circumstances of the action are wrong the entire action is wrong and is considered a sin.

 

[miketv]

Greetings,

I’ll try to share my own personal experience. I had a discussion with one of our parish Preists just over a year ago about anger problems I have experienced for many years, most of my life in fact. After a lenghty talk he suggested I seek a mental health professional for evaluation, reluctantly I agreed to do so. After a couple of appointments with a doctor I was asked to trial a drug treatment for bi-polar disorder. In breif, the treatment has been very sucessful for the health of our family, life in Christ, Church, work, person,ect. With that being said, every disordered action/emotion I experienced was typically followed by feelings of remorse, regret and sorrow. With the help of our Preists I was able to more clearly discern the sin in my past/present actions.

I think Nate hit it on the head (to say) with posting this part of the Catechism:

1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.
I believe that ultimately, it is my responsibility as a Catholic to seek help in correcting and healing my disordered/sinful life. I have found God’s grace through the sacraments of the Church, very compassionate clergy, a loving family and prayer.

 

[may_by_the_bay]

I don’t see how this is any of your concern, unless you or someone you love suffers from a mental illness. The ill have enough issues without having to be provoked to wonder how much their illness is causing them to sin, thank you

 

[Nate13]

I don’t see how this is any of your concern, unless you or someone you love suffers from a mental illness. The ill have enough issues without having to be provoked to wonder how much their illness is causing them to sin, thank you

Uh I think the OP deserves the benefit of the doubt that they were asking said question in reference to someone they know intimately or was just curious and is asking from an intellectual level. I have seen nothing to suggest otherwise have you?