Q&A: Is a person suffering from mental illness necessarily making an unconscious choice? Or is their will not free?
Is a person suffering from mental illness necessarily making an unconscious choice? Or is their will not free?
Question
I’m asking this בעקבות the release of the two hostages who had been in captivity for a decade, and sorry for the way I’m putting it… I don’t understand what the need was to release them and free terrorists in exchange for them. After all, they chose to cross the fence, and there is even a chance that they considered the possibility that they could become captives. So I want to ask: even regarding people whose will is (apparently) not always fully free, can their choice still be conscious? Meaning, conscious of its consequences and risks? Because if so, one could say that maybe at least for some of them the choice was conscious, and therefore we are not obligated to free them.
Answer
You’re thinking too dichotomously.
First of all, not every mental impairment means a loss of choice. There are different levels and different kinds.
But even if they chose, a person who made a mistake is still worthy of efforts to save him. A person who wants to commit suicide—we try to save him too. You are right that maybe the price we would pay should be lower. A person who drove recklessly on the road and was injured is treated in the hospital. All the more so because there are also their families, who were not part of the decision.
Discussion on Answer
I already answered that.
Yes, thanks! I noticed just now that you answered that.
I don’t know what the level of impairment of those mentally ill people is, so apparently I can’t know whether their choice was conscious or not… But even if it was, how can one say that this is a mistake? After all, maybe one could say that since they suffer from mental illness, they will usually make choices—whether conscious or not—that lead them to terrible mistakes like these. So why should we be obligated to free a person suffering from mental illness for every mistake he makes? (And in addition pay dearly for it by releasing thousands of terrorists…)