• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Suicide as a Rational Option

tojohndillonesq

Scholar
T
Joined
Jun 18, 2006
Messages
68
Sorry if this discussion is already underway... I searched and found nothing (to my surprise)

If you don't believe the moral stricture that suicide is a sin, what is stopping you? Some possible reasons:

1) Pleasure. You enjoy life and wake up every day to squeeze the pleasure out of it like a big Orange.
This seems valid; if life is really fun for you, it does not have to mean anything for you to enjoy it.

2a) Emotional Responsibility. You have others who count on you emotionally and you don't want to hurt them.
This does not seem valid. If you are not happy and enjoying life, there is NO way you are helping others enjoy it. You cannot give what you do not have.

2b) Financial Responsibility. You have kids or parents or others who are counting on you to support them.
This does not seem valid either. If you don't support them, someone else will. Money can't buy happiness, etc. If all you are good for is money... jeez, that is pathetic for both you and your dependents. (If you are happy then the question does not arise; you stay alive for that reason, not due to your financial responsibilities.)

3) To leave a legacy. (Be remembered, accomplish something, etc.)
Please. This is monopoly money. Nothing counts when the game is over.

I really can't come up with anything else that is remotely rational. In Japan (Buddhist and Shinto tradition of faith), Sepeku was (is?) considered an honorable alternative. If you are a burden or a disgrace to yourself or to others, just die. The ONLY reason we do not have that philosophy in the West is two centuries of Christian ethics weaving themselves through our cultural norms. Is there any other religion that opposes self-conclusion?

Suicide should be an absolute fundamental right, regardless of age or reason. Government interference in this choice is the worst sort of invasion of privacy.

I would further suggest that it should be a socially respected alternative. Regardless of the type of burden you have become - financial, emotional, or whatever - the willingness to remove yourself should be lauded rather than reviled.

OK folks... anyone have a rational argument against it? (Religious/moral reasons are, by definition, irrational.) Or are we all charter members of the "Right to Die" club?
 
Last edited:
2a, 2b, not necessarily. Those are only false when they are. You're being overly simplistic.

Your assessment of 3 is an outright fallacy. Say I, in the US, have a girlfriend in China (who for some reason can't use the internet while there). Should I care about her? Per your argument, I'm not even there. It's not relevant whether or not I care about her because nothing I can do can affect her. The only difference between my girlfriend in China and my legacy is that one is separated in space and the other in time.

Either way, what's relevant is whether I, right here, right now, care about the thing separated in space, or the thing separated in time. After all it's me, right here, right now, who has to decide whether or not to commit suicide, and while I both make and carry out that decision, presumably, I'd be alive. I'll only be dead after it's too late to address what I care about.
 
But here's the biggest point, life is strange and varies unexpectedly.

The Berlin wall came down, women got the vote, the slaves were freed. The world changes, and in a smaller way, the conditions of an individual life change, often very unexpectedly.

So say you are now getting no pleasure from your life. How do you measure how much pain it's reasonable to put up with on the chance that your situation could be different tomorrow.

Of course there are situations where it is vanishingly unlikely that current pain will abate, certain types of disease, etc. But overall, the fact that tomorrow could be an improvement, unless you can logically conclude that a meaningful improvement in a reasonable amount of time is completely impossible, there's no reason not to wait another day at least and see if things get better. After all, you don't lose out nearly as much by missing a day of not existing as you do in missing a possibly good day.
 
I believe in the 'right' to suicide, but you seem to be making some kind of general case for why someone ought to kill him/herself. I mean your numbered list. Really, for each of these items, each individual's circumstances and tolerance is different.

You need to disentangle the legal or moral issue from the argument for why one might want to commit suicide as presented in your list. These items seem oddly argued, also.

My middle-aged friends and I say to each other--why not hang on? Can you find nothing to live for, take pleasure in, work for?

Sometimes the pain that is causing the despair can be helped, both through changing the circumstances and by treating the depression...
 
I think the problem is that suicide is most often the irrational option. I can certainly understand why someone would choose an earlier death with some dignity over six months of abject misery being eaten alive by terminal cancer. But most suicides seem to be committed by people who are suffering from severe depression.
 
Foster Zygote said:
I think the problem is that suicide is most often the irrational option. I can certainly understand why someone would choose an earlier death with some dignity over six months of abject misery being eaten alive by terminal cancer. But most suicides seem to be committed by people who are suffering from severe depression.
Click to expand...
Or anxiety. Untreated anxiety will cause suicide.
 
I recently read an article in "NewScientist" about Thomas Joiner's book "why people commit suicide". Joiner goes out to discover why some people commit suicide, while many others who have suicidal thoughts, don't. He identifies three factors that are necessary before suicide occurs:

A feeling of being a burden on loved ones; a sense of isolation; and a learned ability to hurt oneself

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/joiwhy.html

The argument he makes is that it is not enough to want to commit suicide, but in order to overcome our self-preservation instinct, we have to become desensitized to pain/violence/death. This is why doctors are more likely to commit suicide, for example.

I know this doesn't answer the question of morality and ethics, but I do think it sheds light on the psychology of suicide.
 
tojohndillonesq said:
3) To leave a legacy. (Be remembered, accomplish something, etc.)
Please. This is monopoly money. Nothing counts when the game is over.
Click to expand...

Even if a game of Monopoly will inevitably end and be ultimately irrelevant, that doesn't mean one should act like a spoiled brat and throw the game board up in the air walking away mid-game. That's against the rules of the game.
 
tojohndillonesq said:
If you don't believe the moral stricture that suicide is a sin, what is stopping you?
Click to expand...

With no supernatural beliefs, I don't believe anything is a "sin", but I do have morality. I think the question presumes a default position that morality stems from religion. I reject that idea.

Morality is a mental capacity we evolved (much like language) for living in complex groups. As with language, there is the capacity and a conventional aspect to morality.

At any rate, to play the game: for someone who believes this life is all there is, suicide is the ultimate irrevocable decision. It would mean the complete and utter annihilation of my self.

If anything, a person who believes he is somehow immortal seems more likely to commit suicide. Maybe that's why they need the "thou shalt not" to keep them from doing it.
 
To elaborate further: imagine I were faced with something that might make me consider suicide, like chronic pain. As Cavemonster points out, no matter how sure I am that the pain will continue until I die, I don't really KNOW that for certain. So, if I were making a cost/benefit analysis of the decision, on the benefit side, I'd have a less than 1 probability of making this unbearable pain stop, but on the cost side, I'd have the absolute certainty of my own annihilation. I'm not saying I would never make that decision, but it would take extreme circumstances (extremely intense pain that is unlikely ever to abate) to make it a rational choice.
 
I agree that it should be an accepted rational option, but

Foster Zygote said:
I think the problem is that suicide is most often the irrational option. I can certainly understand why someone would choose an earlier death with some dignity over six months of abject misery being eaten alive by terminal cancer. But most suicides seem to be committed by people who are suffering from severe depression.
Click to expand...

FZ is right on target, and depression is truly horrible -- AND treatable. So I would highly encourage even completely rational (if such person exists) suicidal people to try treatment for depression (or, as Cain added, anxiety) before trying to commit suicide.

If you don't like the results of treatment, you can do the other later. On the other hand, if you don't like the results of suicide...
 
tojohndillonesq said:
Sorry if this discussion is already underway... I searched and found nothing (to my surprise)

If you don't believe the moral stricture that suicide is a sin, what is stopping you? Some possible reasons:

1) Pleasure. You enjoy life and wake up every day to squeeze the pleasure out of it like a big Orange.
This seems valid; if life is really fun for you, it does not have to mean anything for you to enjoy it.
Click to expand...

2a) Emotional Responsibility. You have others who count on you emotionally and you don't want to hurt them.
This does not seem valid. If you are not happy and enjoying life, there is NO way you are helping others enjoy it. You cannot give what you do not have.
Click to expand...
If you're suggesting that depressed people don't hurt others when they commit suicide you are totally wrong. If you know anything about suicide you must already know that.

2b) Financial Responsibility. You have kids or parents or others who are counting on you to support them.
This does not seem valid either. If you don't support them, someone else will. Money can't buy happiness, etc. If all you are good for is money... jeez, that is pathetic for both you and your dependents. (If you are happy then the question does not arise; you stay alive for that reason, not due to your financial responsibilities.)
Click to expand...
That you would even consider that suicide could possibly be acceptable if you have young children suggests your moral compass is extremely awry. That you say, if I interpreted correctly, that suicide is acceptable if you merely aren't recently getting pleasure out of life rather than only if you are in extreme emotional or physical pain, accentuates the insanity of this.

3) To leave a legacy. (Be remembered, accomplish something, etc.)
Please. This is monopoly money. Nothing counts when the game is over.
Click to expand...
This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the ethics of suicide, but rather the legitimacy of sources of pleasure that some people have. For the purposes of your argument it makes no difference what people get their pleasure from, only that they do so, so this would fall under the category of your first reason.

....
Government interference in this choice is the worst sort of invasion of privacy.
Click to expand...
This is the worst sort of exaggeration.


I would further suggest that it should be a socially respected alternative. Regardless of the type of burden you have become - financial, emotional, or whatever - the willingness to remove yourself should be lauded rather than reviled.
Click to expand...
In certain circumstances yes, suicide is fine with me. But you seem to lack an understanding of the conditions in which most suicides occur, most suicides being committed by those who have an often curable or manageable mental illness, or who are experiencing other life events that are temporary, or by people who are in a completely irrational probably passing state of mind, and most importantly most suicides deepy hurting those people who were in the perpetrators' life especially children of course.

OK folks...
Click to expand...
Please don't "OK folks" an internet message board. Thank you.

anyone have a rational argument against it? (Religious/moral reasons are, by definition, irrational.) Or are we all charter members of the "Right to Die" club?
Click to expand...
The main reason I can think of is that doing so signifies that there is something wrong in your life and your life is something you have control over. Hell, even if you were born into slavery in the American south your chances weren't that bad of escaping if (and it is a big if) you couldn't find any enjoyment at all in your externally controlled life.
 
The self-help people have a pretty good saying: "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."
 
This is a hard one for me...

In 1995, my older brother, four days before his 32nd birthday, took a gun and shot himself.

He left behind a wife and two little girls. At the time, one daughter was six and the other was two.

Medical professionals would have described him as having a history of drug/alcohol abuse and mental illness.

I would have described him as smart, funny, and the guy who introduced me to hard rock music as a kid.

Burned into my memory is the image of his lifeless body, with a hole in his skull, lying in the morgue.

Other memories include watching his kids grow-up, trying to cope with the situation. The youngest really didn't remember him all that well, but the six year old did. For years after, if someone gave the oldest a coin to "make a wish" in a fountain, she would always make the same one...

"I wish I had my Dad back."

tojohndillonesq, I don't know what your experience is regarding suicide, but what I do know is that my brother could NEVER have imagined the fallout of his decision. From reading his suicide note, I know that he was not rational when he pulled the trigger.

But it's too late now...he's dead.

You said, "If you are a burden or a disgrace to yourself or to others, just die."

I say...no.
 
I'm sorry, but I find the OP's premise to be highly arrogant.

After reading Greediguts response, I have to ask simply: Who determines whose life is worth keeping, and who decides if it's time to end it? What gives me the right to decide, "I'm done," and to go blow my brain matter across the walls? And on what basis?

The biggest problem with this idea is that any criteria proposed is based upon my (obviously) flawed judgment, and that it will result in an equally, if not significantly higher flawed result. It presupposes that any deficit that exists at present will be perpetuated, and the end will necessarily be bad. It's clearly not so: others have overcome far worse than mere embarrassment, and still others have overcome serious medical conditions to eventually do incredible things. It's one of the reason I am opposed to many of these "right to die" initiatives, simply because it presupposes that you will no longer be of "use" to someone simply because of some present incapacity.

We're all going to die at some point or another. I would rather delay that inevitability as long as is humanly possible.

Another point is that a life belongs only to the person living it. It's not so, and never has been. The reality is that a life belongs not only to the individual, but to those who choose to share a life with them, regardless of the time or intensity involved. We simply don't know how a small contact with another person will affect them, and terminating our lives, not so much on our terms but based upon our own selfish intent, is destructive and foolish.

Sorry, but this whole idea of suicide except when a life is nearing an end, and continuing it induces a far worse trauma, is selfish, foolish, and wrong.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom