Chapters 60 - 64 Summary

Chapter 60: The narrator goes on about the legal viewpoint in relation to Moosbrugger and others. There is the matter of sanity and how this relates to the degree of responsibility that an individual has for his [or her] crimes. The saner the person, the greater the level of responsibility. If a person has a mental illness, particularly a severe one, there is a legal difference known as "diminished responsibility" (p. 288). Moosbrugger has been sentenced according to the idea that he's crazy and therefore has diminished capacity to make the right decision - to refrain from harming others at all times. This is some attempt on the part of society to say that although he is murderer and has shown himself to be violent at other times as well there is something about the whole thing that is not entirely his fault...