Morality of Suicide

[Andre_5772]

For quite some time, I have been of the opinion that suicide is always immoral. This intuition arises out of my awe at how complicated and delicate the human body is, yet how elegantly all these systems work together, for the most part.

However I read something the other day which was to the effect of, "Life is for learning and growing, not for suffering through." I have to admit that this makes a lot of sense to me, too. But this leads to the possibility that at times suicide is justified. Specifically, when one can reasonably expect an excess of suffering in the future, and this condition will prevent any significant growth as a person, contribution to society, or whatever that person finds meaningful.

When I thought about this further, I realized that I probably wouldn't begrudge someone who committed suicide, provided they had rationally come to the conclusion that these criteria were satisfied. While I would never advise suicide, I think my view has changed to the point where I can accept it in certain circumstances without condemning it. I'm wondering what others think about the morality of suicide. Is it on par with murder because it ends a human life? Or is it a different act because rational beings are free to choose death for themselves although not for others?

[McCulloch]

That's quite a biased definition (looks more like a definition of solely formal logic to me) - but you yourself said it there. Logic is the study of reasoning.

OK, use the word in the sense of Spock in Star Trek, rather than in its formal sense.

Let us take this back to the ethical controversy at hand - suicide. We can never make a decision based on pure logic because there will never be enough evidence to deduce a completely justified answer from. There is... a 0% chance that either decision will be fully justified.

This line of reasoning would lead to perpetual inaction. We all make decisions based on perceived probabilities.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 34 Page 4

... Logically, no. It is an infinitely immoral act, for the following reasons.

Morals are subjective, as we'll see...

1 - It is incredibly selfish and inconsiderate. Before committing suicide, one must fully justify the psychological harm they do to their family (losing a child is the most psychologically traumatic experience possible for a person to undergo, second only to losing a sibling) and friends.

I find it 'incredibly selfish and inconsiderate' for me to be hooked up to machines with no hope for recovery. Wasting funds on an unrecoverable condition, and 'bed space', I think would be 'incredibly selfish and inconsiderate'.
Some folks murder their own offspring, so your statement about the severity of trauma is a subjective value beholden to you. I think it would apply in my case, but your generality can't be shown as universal. I would be far more psychologically scarred if I knew my family had to witness me experience a drawn out death. Who's selfish here? My opinion is that it would be selfish of my family to expect me to experience a drawn out death in order to spare them psychological harm.

2 - This one is more to do with circumstance. Let us say that the person is going to commit suicide because they are depressed. The chances of them becoming happier in later life are slim (if they continue the same psychological attitude to life, but large if they can change their self image enough to improve their perception of life, since that is the generalised cause of depression/mania), but still not 0%. Thus - logic states that the only fully justified action (therefore the only rational option to take) is to not commit suicide.

Your scenario fails to take into account what would happen if the person were to become even sadder.

Depression is not always a self image problem. It can occur through chemical imbalance for instance. So treat it with drugs, right? Sometimes the side effects are worse than the condition. Sometimes the drugs themselves can be shown to increase suicide rates.

Let's say the chances of happiness if suicide is prevented are... 20%. There is an 80% chance the person will stay miserable for life. The only statement that can be obtained from this is that "suicide cannot be fully justified because there is not enough evidence to base the decision upon". Therefore, there is only one rational outcome - non-action.

Let's say the chances of worsening sadness/pain if suicide is prevented are...20%...
The real world doesn't care about statistics. Those who are depressed usually don't care, or don't realize what the chances of their improvement are, all they know is they want the pain to stop.

It's a fine and noble thing to want folks to live, but only the individual can determine if their life is worth living. If they choose not to live, in my opinion it is far more noble to accept their decision.

To claim that someone would want to end their pain is immoral I find even more immoral. Subjective yes, but I stand by my statement.

From Post 39 Page 4

Therefore, if you cannot make a logically correct decision over suicide/non-suicide - the only truly logical option is to not make the decision. In a case like suicide (*snip*, off topic), this results in non-suicide - which is one of the outcomes of the former decision - therefore, a decision can be answered purely logically, even if only as a coincidence.

This doesn't factor in the individual's position. If they are in such pain they wish to end it all, the only logical position for them is to end it all. Considering their decision immoral and deriving locic from that stance is not the way to go here.

My point about abortion was that if this purely logical view was taken towards abortion, it would always be considered immoral to abort a child.

Morals are subjective, informed by your world view, so your position here is only logical ii]to you[/i]. You're opinion that something is immoral does not make it a logical argument, but subject to the dictates you've laid down for your subjective view of what is moral

... Probably - you seem to be under the impression that I'm trying to impose this upon a suicidal person. The circumstances are neutral, since I can't specify a correct answer for all occasions.

I'm assuming your quotes above are only opinion then? If so, I would hope then you would change "immoral" above to a term less judgemental.

Logic is objective, which morals are not. Morals are subjective, which logic is not. Using one to ascertain the other is not possible.

Logic, and morality, are both useless to those who feel their pain is unbearable.

[Mister E]

OK, use the word in the sense of Spock in Star Trek, rather than in its formal sense.

I'm not really sure what you meant there, since a: I've only really looked at this sort of thing for a couple of months, bear in mind I haven't finished school yet, and b: I've only seen Star Trek - The Next Generation.

http://plato.stanford.edu/search/search ... uery=logic ?

This line of reasoning would lead to perpetual inaction. We all make decisions based on perceived probabilities.

Yes, that's why I said it would be a foolish route to take. I used it in my reasoning as an example explaining the idea of there always being a chance for good (more than bad), so abortion can't ever be justified completely. Also, I agree with your comment on pure logic now, since the "fully justified" outcome is based on flawed premises in the first place.

I find it 'incredibly selfish and inconsiderate' for me to be hooked up to machines with no hope for recovery. Wasting funds on an unrecoverable condition, and 'bed space', I think would be 'incredibly selfish and inconsiderate'.

Yes, euthanasia is probably the best option here.

Some folks murder their own offspring

With severe psychological problems, yes.

so your statement about the severity of trauma is a subjective value beholden to you. I think it would apply in my case, but your generality can't be shown as universal.

Of course not, that would mean it wasn't generalised wouldn't it? You are correct in pointing out the obvious flaws in that there are exceptions, but if you would really like to contribute to my understanding of suicide then please don't be so pedantic.

I would be far more psychologically scarred if I knew my family had to witness me experience a drawn out death. Who's selfish here?

The person who ideally should be euthanised but doesn't want to be, since it would be more traumatic to watch a nuclaeic family member slowly die than die quickly - stress from decisions like contradiction bias goes away spectacularily quickly. When my sister died (for various medical reasons) I would have much rather she had died quickly than over the course of several weeks - it would have spared her (and my family) a great deal of grief, albeit my opinion again. Subjective amiright?

My opinion is that it would be selfish of my family to expect me to experience a drawn out death in order to spare them psychological harm.

... Doesn't this entirely contradict your previous statement? Please state which of these is your real opinion.

Your scenario fails to take into account what would happen if the person were to become even sadder.

If multiverse theory is correct there is more possibility for good than bad, although that is incredibly pedantic - applied to humanity in general, yes, you are right.

Depression is not always a self image problem. It can occur through chemical imbalance for instance.

Aforementioned has never been proven to be caused by chemical imbalance - so far, the only causes of depression known are psychological or due to deformed body structure.

So treat it with drugs, right? Sometimes the side effects are worse than the condition. Sometimes the drugs themselves can be shown to increase suicide rates.

Aforementioned is also (as far as I know) false, unless you mean withdrawal effects and so forth. The idea that a person could become more depressed than previously whilst on medication could only be psychological, which is why psychotherapy exists.

Let's say the chances of worsening sadness/pain if suicide is prevented are...20%...
The real world doesn't care about statistics. Those who are depressed usually don't care, or don't realize what the chances of their improvement are, all they know is they want the pain to stop.

Yes, which is why you can't enforce this upon anyone, I'm pretty sure I never stated that my opinion should be enforced, either.

It's a fine and noble thing to want folks to live, but only the individual can determine if their life is worth living.

Yes - I'm not exactly forcing people to live against their own will, am I?

If they choose not to live, in my opinion it is far more noble to accept their decision.

I wouldn't accept their decision, but I wouldn't prevent them from doing it/would help them if they wanted me to, that's the most humanitarian way of going about it I would say.

To claim that someone would want to end their pain is immoral I find even more immoral. Subjective yes, but I stand by my statement.

Why do you consider subjective statements entirely false in debate? Surely that entirely defeats the purpose?

This doesn't factor in the individual's position. If they are in such pain they wish to end it all, the only logical position for them is to end it all. Considering their decision immoral and deriving locic from that stance is not the way to go here.

If you replace the word "logical" with "rational" then yes, I agree.

Morals are subjective, informed by your world view, so your position here is only logical to you. You're opinion that something is immoral does not make it a logical argument, but subject to the dictates you've laid down for your subjective view of what is moral

Yes, although unless the person whose view is in question is insane this has little effect. You do like your subject/objectivity lol

I'm assuming your quotes above are only opinion then? If so, I would hope then you would change "immoral" above to a term less judgemental.

Wouldn't that be paradoxical, seeing as my opinion is a conclusion and requires something to be judged?

Logic is objective, which morals are not. Morals are subjective, which logic is not. Using one to ascertain the other is not possible.

Well, don't you have to mix the two to come up with at least partially justified rationality, don't you?

Logic, and morality, are both useless to those who feel their pain is unbearable.

Yes.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Page 5 Post 42

so your statement about the severity of trauma is a subjective value beholden to you. I think it would apply in my case, but your generality can't be shown as universal.

Of course not, that would mean it wasn't generalised wouldn't it? You are correct in pointing out the obvious flaws in that there are exceptions, but if you would really like to contribute to my understanding of suicide then please don't be so pedantic.

My response was to your statement:

>my underlining<
1 - It is incredibly selfish and inconsiderate. Before committing suicide, one must fully justify the psychological harm they do to their family (losing a child is the most psychologically traumatic experience possible for a person to undergo, second only to losing a sibling) and friends.

I don't think my reply was pedantic at all. You seem to be stating an objective position. On the definition of 'generality' I'll concede being wrong, or confused on my part.
I do note you agree euthanasia could be an acceptable position, but from a 'first read' of your statement I don't think it unreasonable to arrive at my response.

My opinion is that it would be selfish of my family to expect me to experience a drawn out death in order to spare them psychological harm.

... Doesn't this entirely contradict your previous statement? Please state which of these is your real opinion.

My point was to point out the subjectiveness of your position, which I think we're seeing I misunderstood to be an objective position.

Depression is not always a self image problem. It can occur through chemical imbalance for instance.

Aforementioned has never been proven to be caused by chemical imbalance - so far, the only causes of depression known are psychological or due to deformed body structure.

There is legitimate debate here, lacking solid proof I'll plow that one under.

Yes - I'm not exactly forcing people to live against their own will, am I?

In light of your clarifications, I agree you're not.

To claim that someone would want to end their pain is immoral I find even more immoral. Subjective yes, but I stand by my statement.

Why do you consider subjective statements entirely false in debate? Surely that entirely defeats the purpose?

I've been engaged in a somewhat heated debate about objective morals, please accept my apology for jumping to conclusions. Still though, I think it's wrong to consider suicide an immoral act.

This doesn't factor in the individual's position. If they are in such pain they wish to end it all, the only logical position for them is to end it all. Considering their decision immoral and deriving locic from that stance is not the way to go here.

If you replace the word "logical" with "rational" then yes, I agree.

I stand by claim in light of what I said later:

Logic, and morality, are both useless to those who feel their pain is unbearable.

I suppose the observer must decide which of us are correct, or closer to correct. I do concede that those in pain may act irrationally/illogically, but I don't think it can be said all are. Let me know what they say, in light of my total misunderstanding of your post I will be hiding in a fetal position under a rock.

So I do apologize if I've misinterpreted your statements, but I do think maybe, possibly, in a more perfect world, and the planets all aligned and maybe some foil on the antennas they may have coulda perhaps mighta maybe have been phrased with a bit more clarity for those of us who are new to your philosophy.

[Mister E]

Since essentially all of this was over a misunderstanding, this should sum things up so I can give a well phrased stance on suicide.

So I do apologize if I've misinterpreted your statements, but I do think maybe, possibly, in a more perfect world, and the planets all aligned and maybe some foil on the antennas they may have coulda perhaps mighta maybe have been phrased with a bit more clarity for those of us who are new to your philosophy.

[/quote]

I just read my first comment and you are right, sorry about that. I meant to establish the idea that (generally) a person's suicide will cause intense stress and psychological trauma on others, so essentially combining ideals of Utilitarianism with the ideals of human rights - that was the first point. The second point was over reasoning I was discussing with McCulloch - that would mean that the only fully justifiable option to take in the matter would be non-action, which is the same as non-suicide. I seem to have done this (possibly whilst psychotropically induced?) to the extent of being incomprehensible - I merged my opinion into what was meant to be an interesting take on the justification of suicide.

Here is my opinion on suicide -

Suicide is immoral, unless:
The person in question has an incureable disease;
The person has a severe psychological condition e.g: chronic manic / depressive / schizophrenic disorders;
The person has/will have (within his/the friends/families knowledge) no friends or family - and said person's existence is only affecting himself negatively;
Various exceptions within these cases, e.g: suicide because you've contracted HIV yet have years left to live would not justify a suicide at that specific point in time.

Rules and regulations to prevent suicide should only be enforced if a general consensus is reached that the person in question (who wants to kill themselves) is going to do so for an unjustifiable reason (you cannot be infinitely humanitarian about this sort of thing) - for example a 13 year old having a depressive mood swing/a bad day at school.

Please tell me whether you think this is agreeable/can be corrected.

[realthinker]

Since essentially all of this was over a misunderstanding, this should sum things up so I can give a well phrased stance on suicide.

So I do apologize if I've misinterpreted your statements, but I do think maybe, possibly, in a more perfect world, and the planets all aligned and maybe some foil on the antennas they may have coulda perhaps mighta maybe have been phrased with a bit more clarity for those of us who are new to your philosophy.

I just read my first comment and you are right, sorry about that. I meant to establish the idea that (generally) a person's suicide will cause intense stress and psychological trauma on others, so essentially combining ideals of Utilitarianism with the ideals of human rights - that was the first point. The second point was over reasoning I was discussing with McCulloch - that would mean that the only fully justifiable option to take in the matter would be non-action, which is the same as non-suicide. I seem to have done this (possibly whilst psychotropically induced?) to the extent of being incomprehensible - I merged my opinion into what was meant to be an interesting take on the justification of suicide.

Here is my opinion on suicide -

Suicide is immoral, unless:
The person in question has an incureable disease;

The common cold sore virus is an incurable disease. Hardly worth dying over.

I believe you might be trying to say "The person is facing imminent death due to incurable disease."

The person has a severe psychological condition e.g: chronic manic / depressive / schizophrenic disorders;
The person has/will have (within his/the friends/families knowledge) no friends or family - and said person's existence is only affecting himself negatively;
Various exceptions within these cases, e.g: suicide because you've contracted HIV yet have years left to live would not justify a suicide at that specific point in time.

Rules and regulations to prevent suicide should only be enforced if a general consensus is reached that the person in question (who wants to kill themselves) is going to do so for an unjustifiable reason (you cannot be infinitely humanitarian about this sort of thing) - for example a 13 year old having a depressive mood swing/a bad day at school.

Please tell me whether you think this is agreeable/can be corrected.

I understand your position, I believe. Unless you are willing to take away basic human rights and quality of life, however, how would do you propose to enforce "rules and regulations to prevent suicide"? Do you think such enforcement would ever be effective?

[Mister E]

The common cold sore virus is an incurable disease. Hardly worth dying over.

I believe you might be trying to say "The person is facing imminent death due to incurable disease."

Yes, I wasn't thinking too hard about it though, so I put the "various exceptions" bit at the end.

I understand your position, I believe. Unless you are willing to take away basic human rights and quality of life, however, how would do you propose to enforce "rules and regulations to prevent suicide"? Do you think such enforcement would ever be effective?

I would reason that the temporary removal of human rights in order to benefit the person in question overall is justified (my morals are based upon utility calculus, but I incorperate humanity into the ideals over periods of time so as not to remove human reasoning - I value this as necessary for a human being) - thus, unless I/another person can think of a better way around it I would use force. If the case was a teenager suffering from mild depression this would be acceptable, but not once you hit the point where the person will suffer more than the suffering caused by their suicide on others around them - though this is hard to measure, so I wouldn't condone using force/removal of human rights when a case is sitting on the fence.

I think such enforcement could be effective, but there are many more problems with society as a whole that would need fixing before anything efficient could be achieved. At this time in life it would probably be more worthwhile to invest resources in other problems, though.

[ravenssong]

I'm wondering what others think about the morality of suicide. Is it on par with murder because it ends a human life? Or is it a different act because rational beings are free to choose death for themselves although not for others?

Murder is taking someone else's life, presumably without their consent.
Suicide is taking your own life, with your consent.
My boyfriend and I have a dear friend who had AIDS for 25 years and this fall passed away very suddenly, he had been healthy for weeks before he passed away, There are many questions we just don't ask. It doesn't matter to us weather his disease took him or weather he just didn't want to live with his disease any more, the tears that were shed remembered who he was as a person and how our lives were a little less because he was no longer here, thankfully in the conversations after the service his pain took a back row to his love of life, if he been sick and lost weight till he was 80 ponds and wasted away to a vegetable it would have been infinitely harder on us knowing how much his disease had put him through. As much as we love him we wouldn't have wished him back just to suffer that again.

most arguments against this kind of "death with dignity" are from the church..
If you give people the right to decide what they want to do with their lives. Suddenly the church ...oops I mean God.... can't control you with fear over your eternal destination.

[saitohaj]

Personally I fell suicide is just a selfish act.

[Nilloc James]

most arguments against this kind of "death with dignity" are from the church..
If you give people the right to decide what they want to do with their lives. Suddenly the church ...oops I mean God.... can't control you with fear over your eternal destination

Fear is the easiest method to control the masses. If they are afraid to rise up the rulers go unchecked.