Whether a perpetrator with a mental disorder was able to act according to his insight into the unlawfulness of the intended act, or whether his ability to control his drives and criminal intentions was severely diminished, is a central aspect of legal responsibility as defined by the German penal code. This article aims to give the legal concept of capacity to control an empirical, psychological background. This concept is intrinsically interwoven with motivation, conscious decision-making and volition as well as with the ability to convert intention into action. For neuroscientific research, it is important to have a valid psychological model of decision making. This article presents a psychological model of intentional action control and the problem of deactualization. It proposes a differentiation between the executive and the motivational capacities of controlling one's decisions and actions, each of which can separately be disturbed by various mental disorders.
Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.