What is the difference in evil and mental illness?

Say someone killed someone, how do you know it was mental illness or just evil?

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Well, 'evil' is an absolute. Something profoundly immoral or malevolent is still immoral or malevolent regardless of the cause. Personally, I think any person who engages in 'evil' is mentally ill to some degree.

Umile18

@puck61 I see what you're trying to say.

SW-User

@puck61 So there is no difference in mentally ill and evil if they do bad? I understand some people can be mentally ill and not do bad too.

puck61

@Umile18 Yes. You have shoplifters, and you have people who enjoy torturing and killing children.

puck61

@SW-User When you deal with 'degrees' of magnitude, it gets complicated and it always ends up with the "objective vs subjective" argument. Hollywood stole it from me, but I like the 'sweet old dog' metaphor. The sweetest old dog in the world can spontaneously rip a child's face off. The dog is not evil, but that doesn't change the fact that the dog has to be put down.