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Misbehaviors

Human society must deal with a variety of misbehaviors, where a behavior violates expectations for a 'typical' human being or social group and the result is a problem for society. Examples of a missed expectation that is not a problem for society is the personal use of recreational drugs but affecting no one else.
These expectations are based on a person's consciousness makes decisions following the ethics as defined by their culture. Another topic covers motivation, which includes the person's social nature that is the foundation for what motivates the next behavior.  As the consciousness is rooted in the brain an impairment in the brain's function, causing poor decisions could also result in misbehavior.

1) Some of these misbehaviors are the failure of the individual to fulfill their responsibility to society. These are sometimes called a failure in judgment before acting. Only that person knows what was used to justify any behavior.

Every culture has a few same basic rules where it is simply wrong to kill or harm another person or to steal or damage another individual's property. There are other rules in society like a contract is a binding commitment, and its terms cannot be broken, unless both sides agree. To prevent any of this misbehavior of breaking basic rules a criminal justice system should implement appropriate punishment as both a deterrent and a means of retribution for the victim.

2) Some of these misbehaviors can arise from an impaired brain function.

I experienced an impaired brain function myself. My brain cancer formed on my right side and affected my left. My left peripheral vision was impaired. The first incident, with this discovery,  was very disturbing. I hit a large rock, to my left, in a parking lot. I never saw whatever I hit but I felt a big bump. I got out of the car to investigate, leaving my door open. I sat down in the car again and when I simply reached with my left hand, without turning, using my peripheral vision to sense the door handle. I was shocked to realize there was no door there. After I turned to my left I could see the door there. Fortunately this time my bad behavior of driving into something damaged only my car, nothing else.

The human brain is certainly a complex wonder. That complexity probably contributes to the possibility of a disturbance in its function.

Society has a number of means available for an individual to impair their own brain function, with a conscious decision to begin that path, so the individual maintains responsibility for the consequences.

For anyone familiar with American culture, alcohol is readily available if any of its side effects are desired. The use of personal recreational drugs serves a similar purpose.

 
Again a conscious decision is made to start on that path, so the individual maintains responsibility for the consequences.

3)  Some misbehaviors can arise with an individual having no empathy. Empathy is a basic trait of our human nature. This condition is called an antisocial personality disorder, or a sociopath.


Unfortunately, recent research suggests a true psychopath's brain is not like other people's, making diagnosis almost impossible. Unfortunately for society some individuals appear to learn to consistently behave like a sociopath.  This misbehavior can be addressed only within the social group, until the problem alerts the criminal justice system. A deterrent might be unavailable when intrinsic, so society must decide on the punishment.

4) The  other misbehaviors are difficult to categorize.

a) One example is the current opioid crisis where the addicts might resort to stealing. The crisis arose after doctors oveprescribed these pain killer drugs, so the initial decision for this path was by a doctor not by the individual, and now many are addicted. An addiction can impair one's judgment. Most people recognize an addiction to alcohol or drugs affects an individual's decisions.

The opiod crisis has been difficult to resolve given the ambiguity of who is responsible.
There is another very similar problem (did the individual decide?), when a misbehavior is caused by PTSD, where the individual might have not known of the possible danger of severe trauma.

b) Another major problem with unexplained violence might exist in society: violence can be a side effect of a prescription for antidepressants. The cause for the recent epidemic of mass murders in schools remains unsolved at the time when this was written.

If the connection is true then the misbehavior arose after a doctor's prescription of an antidepressant, leading to impaired judgment.

c) Other misbehaviors have been attributed to a general classification of mental illness.

There is a suggested myth of mental illness, where a person is said to have an illness in the mind (not in the brain) causing the individual's misbehavior. If this is truly the case, that the person was incapable of knowing the mind's incapacity, then society must make available to the individual the necessary psychiatric care to address the social problem in the individual as treating oneself for any medical condition is not recommended.

As this is not my expertise I reserve judgment on this being a myth, though the use of the word myth implies doubt within the profession.
The danger of calling a behavioral problem an illness is the lucrative market opens up for prescription drugs to provide a physical solution (in other words, try to use  the drug induced behavioral change as the solution) for a mental problem, that is now called an illness, A clinical psychologist is trained to help individuals deal with mental problems. The opioid crisis arose from the tendency to turn to prescription drugs (vs OTC) for treatment of pain without concern for the consequences of that drug.

Misbehaviors can occur at all levels of society. The social groups will attempt to define a mechanism for accountability using other social groups (having a unity in their purpose) like the police to provide a solution.

Unfortunately this attempt to deal with problems arising from some chaotic behaviors in the social group often are less than successful. An effective solution has not been defined, especially for a large social group
.
This topic was written before Motivation though this topic would logically follow that topic.

Created July 2018
Last changed 07/08/2018

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