ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly examines the two capacities: Reason-responsiveness and consciousness. It introduces the concept of a basic cognitive or psychological capacity. “Basic” because its effective operation is necessary for mental health. Reasons in the reason-responsiveness sense are not brute non-rational, arational, or mechanical causes, but causes or perhaps better “becauses” of behavior, which can and often do reflect self-conscious activities of deliberation and forethought. Human practical purposes and values help to define where we should draw lines between mental health and illness. Mental health care insurers may wish to count as few people as possible as depressed, obsessive-compulsive, or paranoid. It cuts costs. Clinicians may draw the lines more generously, with respect to persons who may therapeutically benefit from treatment. However, rather than mental health and illness being stripped of moral dimensions or aspects, an ill person may be regarded as an agent whose actions often possess morally relevant features.
