"...it is contrary to reason and experience to suppose that there can be any real check to brutality, consistent with living the victim still in the power of the executioner."- John Stuart Mill, English Philosopher
Mental disorders share the same concept with magic. Justifying a mental disorder or spell casting, cursing, magic etc. seem to be completely inaccurate because this kind of justification is always based on the non-objective, personal opinion or diagnosis of one person, who somehow plays the role of a god.
H. Sigerist (1891-1957) was a Swiss medical historian who came to the conclusion that psychiatry developed as a medical science some period after the witches hunting (after the 15th century) and most probably this is not a coincidental fact...
H. Sigerist's conclusion also came with a theory which is actually based on the fact that people who used to believe in the idea of magic were mentally ill, so instead of suffering condemnation, they would have to be treated as psychiatric patients who are in need of a therapy.
However, one thing is sure; science started gaining people's religious minds, thus changes were inevitable on the searching field of human developing and/or behavioural patterns.
The American psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) on his book of Manufacture of Madness presents a heretic perception which explains in an insightful way the reasons why a mental illness is similarly ill conceived with the idea of witchcraft, as hundreds of years ago the noblest people used to believe that witches existed.
There were people who used to believe firmly in the fact that witches are responsible for their misfortune. Therefore, they were morally justifying their action of burning a witch. On the other hand, there were people who didn't believe that witches are responsible for their bad luck. Therefore, they used to believe that such an act of condemnation is unacceptable and unfair.
Here's a similar irony in our today's society; people who firmly believe that mental illness does exist, they condemn those who do not follow their own well-known moral or social paths. Those people prefer to offer a cocktail drug-therapy or to dehumanise an "ill" person inside an institution (so easy and convenient). And people who do not believe in mental illness think that such actions are not justified or that they are morally wrong.
Witch hunters were justifying their actions inspired by a false altruistic idea (what we do benefits the greater good...), just like modern witch hunters do (psychiatrists). Maybe the Spanish inquisition has just evolved or transformed and it still exists...
Thomas Szasz also suggests a very interesting way to clarify a person's mental condition in relation to some basic facts;
- an extreme behavioural pattern where a mother rejects and leaves a healthy child and the way that such a behaviour could be explained by others.
- How could some people explain "immoral" actions? Will they explain them while being influenced by religious concepts or could they be influenced by scientific ones?
- The justification of unacceptable or immoral actions either by religion (witches) or by science (mental disorders) which categorises persons through social control by enforcing them to be and to stay subdued for their "sins".
"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still." - John Stuart Mill, English Philosopher
Source: Manufacture of Madness by Thomas Szasz