ABSTRACT
But what constitutes humane treatment of the mentally ill? More money and resources alone are not enough to ensure humane treatment; attitudes towards mental illness and the mentally ill must change. I have argued that well-meaning but simplistic definitions of autonomy contribute little or nothing towards humane treatment. And certainly defining the mentally ill as entirely lacking in autonomy results in inhumane treatment. In essence, to treat the mentally ill humanely requires that we accept that they are people like us, with the same rights as us. Language is not helpful here: terms such as 'the mentally ill' and 'us' immediately set up a condition of opposition and condition us to think of 'them' and 'us'. Yet we cannot ignore that there are significant factors in the conditions called 'mental illness' which do differentiate those suffering from mental illness from those who are not. If this were not the case, there would be no need for the term. Thus humane treatment of the mentally ill requires that we accept a shared humanity and equal rights whilst acknowledging difference. The problems that may and often do result from the nature of mental illness pose serious ethical problems which must be acknowledged, and it must also be acknowledged that there will often be no totally satisfactory answers to some of these problems. How then might the question of how to ensure humane treatment for the mentally ill be addressed?
