 Whether persons with mental conditions are morally required to take medications that make them better able to live normal lives could be styled as a question of the limits of private choice. Some mental health patients are not competent to make their own treatment decisions, but the vast majority are competent most of the time. Some patients are offered medications by their physicians to curb distinctly anti-social impulses such as oppositionality, verbal aggression and violence. It could be argued that these patients have an ethical obligation to medicate themselves, as advised. Competent patients with cognitive and emotional problems (such as moderate depression or mild hallucinations) that affect mainly themselves may plausibly argue that the benefits of psychotropic medications are not outweighed by the risks of lethargy, sexual dysfunction, tremor, speech problems and organ damage. Questions of political philosophy are implicated in debates over the extent to which authorities may compel medication use by death row inmates, defendants awaiting trial, prisoners and in-patients in state hospitals.