What is the difference between being mentally ill and being a bad person?

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A bad person is one who is inclined to act in bad ways. A mentally ill person, accordingly, can also be a bad person. We might think of a mentally ill person as someone who simply can't help doing what they do--where those who are not mentally ill can actually make real decisions. But just because I can't help doing something terrible doesn't make it not terrible when I do it.

But I doubt that the expression "mentally ill" is one that iss very clear-cut or well conceived. Plainly, there is something wrong with anyone who acts badly--just exactly what is wrong with them (whether some "mental illness" we now have a name for, or just a lousy background, or poor education in values, or ...) may be somewhat unclear to discern, aand the border between "illness" and other factors may get extremely blurry. My guess is that the more we know about the brain, the more we are going to find out that "mental illness" will be replaced in our descriptions of the world with several other options that make what is actually wrong in various cases much clearer.

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