Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances
Suppose at this very moment, God visited you and asked you whether you would choose to not exist? What would you choose?
This is a rather easy question to which you would probably answer 'no' unless you a very depressed.
So answer this, if after you have lived your entire live, you have felt everything, all the sorrow, despair, joy, pains and pleasures of your life. If God now gave you the opportunity to never have been born in the first place, what would you choose?
I think that even this is easy to answer as if you have felt everything then even if I was never to be born, I would still have lived once. So it doesn't really matter.
Now answer this: If before being born, God told you everything that would happen in your life but from a third person perspective. Like if Dumbledore told Harry that he would kill Voldemort and everything leading up to it. Harry would know that Cedric Diggory dies in book 4 but he wouldn't have felt it. He wouldn't know Cedric personally but what Dumbledore observed their relationship to be like.
So, would you choose to born if told everything that will happen, from a third person perspective. You wouldn't understand how you feel but know what you feel. Do you think that then you would choose to be born?
Most of you will a probably answer that it is impossible to decide I believe so too, first of all, how can you make decision if you have never lived. The " before being born" seems like an impossible scenario. That's because it is an impossible scenario.
Your decisions are based on you beliefs which are formed through your experiences. So before experiencing anything, the decision you make will have to based on pure rationality which we the living cannot process. Therefore it is objectively impossible to decide the "right" or "wrong" of your experiences.
I think that the basis of the thought," I would rather not be born" is that my life is not worth it, i.e., the pain outweighs the pleasures. I also don't believe it reincarnation, which let's assume to does not happen. If I can say that it is objectively impossible to judge your life's worth and since I believe that you only live once therefore all arguments against suicide seem a bit wrong to me. I think that one should only commit suicide if their life is bad and I just made it clear(I think) that your life is not bad, you just say that it is. So if the reasoning behind suicide is wrong then no matter how much you suffer, it would be wrong to choose to die.
This is a rather easy question to which you would probably answer 'no' unless you a very depressed.
So answer this, if after you have lived your entire live, you have felt everything, all the sorrow, despair, joy, pains and pleasures of your life. If God now gave you the opportunity to never have been born in the first place, what would you choose?
I think that even this is easy to answer as if you have felt everything then even if I was never to be born, I would still have lived once. So it doesn't really matter.
Now answer this: If before being born, God told you everything that would happen in your life but from a third person perspective. Like if Dumbledore told Harry that he would kill Voldemort and everything leading up to it. Harry would know that Cedric Diggory dies in book 4 but he wouldn't have felt it. He wouldn't know Cedric personally but what Dumbledore observed their relationship to be like.
So, would you choose to born if told everything that will happen, from a third person perspective. You wouldn't understand how you feel but know what you feel. Do you think that then you would choose to be born?
Most of you will a probably answer that it is impossible to decide I believe so too, first of all, how can you make decision if you have never lived. The " before being born" seems like an impossible scenario. That's because it is an impossible scenario.
Your decisions are based on you beliefs which are formed through your experiences. So before experiencing anything, the decision you make will have to based on pure rationality which we the living cannot process. Therefore it is objectively impossible to decide the "right" or "wrong" of your experiences.
I think that the basis of the thought," I would rather not be born" is that my life is not worth it, i.e., the pain outweighs the pleasures. I also don't believe it reincarnation, which let's assume to does not happen. If I can say that it is objectively impossible to judge your life's worth and since I believe that you only live once therefore all arguments against suicide seem a bit wrong to me. I think that one should only commit suicide if their life is bad and I just made it clear(I think) that your life is not bad, you just say that it is. So if the reasoning behind suicide is wrong then no matter how much you suffer, it would be wrong to choose to die.
Comments (98)
Why not skip the God/Harry Potter stuff, which adds nothing, and just ask: If you had a choice never to have lived at all, knowing what you now know about your life events, what would you choose?
What are you hoping this question would reveal?
Quoting I love Chom-choms
Incidentally, how on earth can God talk to you if you have never been born? Your identify, your sensibilities are moulded from your lived experiences, so there would be no one for God to talk to. Unless you are putting forth an argument regarding some kind of eternal, pre-birth soul - in which case you have, I think, a rather different philosophical question requiring further elaboration.
Having foreknowledge of one's life kinda takes the fun out of living - you would know in advance what would happen to you and it would be like reruns of a TV show. :meh: Still, that wouldn't make me not want to live - reruns do well for a reason I suppose. However, if there's an excessive amount of meaningless suffering involved, I'll go the antinatalist way and opt out.
Quoting Tom Storm
That is my point, it is impossible to make a purely rational decision. If in the third scenario you say that you would rather not be born then then that would mean that what happened in your life is objectively wrong, the judgement of which is independent of your personal feeling but since our decisions are based on our beliefs, which are based on our life experiences therefore it is impossible to judge a life to be objectively good or bad.
The reason that this is an argument against suicide is that I think that the basis of the thought," I would rather not be born" is that my life is not worth it, the pain outweighs the pleasures. I also don't believe it reincarnation, which let's assume to does not happen. If I can say that it is objectively impossible to judge your life's worth and since I believe that you only live once therefore all arguments against suicide seem a bit wrong to me. I think that one should only commit suicide if their life is bad and the above argument makes it clear that your life may or may not be bad, So suicide is wrong, no matter how much you suffer.
This. Cognitive abilities develop over a lifetime. How can I make a decision if my basis for decision making hasn't been established yet?
Even if we were to disregard the problem of "me before birth", I don't think I could make a sensible decision based on information alone. As a being that exists I have learned that "feeling" an experience is essential to understanding it.
In my youth, I was a sad little kid. Often existence would appear as a bother.
A bit older and a bit wiser, having had a brush with death, my whole paradigm changed.
The suffering from yesterday became a lesson of joy today.
Most of all, what I experienced during transition was emotional. Philosophical thought only came after the feeling was chewed through.
If I were to only "know" but not "feel" my life, I doubt I could rationally tell whether the good outweighs the bad or vice versa.
Quoting TheMadFool
That's not what would happen. You would choose to exist but then you wouldn't remember about it. Otherwise, it would apply that something lingers after death with gets reincarnated and that is the basis of your beliefs. That would be an interesting, your soul is your moral compass but not not the point I am trying to make.
I hope it is clear now.
What's the point then if my choice won't make a difference? Is this God just trying to get some cheap thrills at our expense?
Quoting I love Chom-choms
Again, in addition to the amnesia that would make the whole exercise pointless, if there's just too much pain involved, count me out.
I'm sure you've heard of spies with cyanide capsules dangling around their necks...just in case...interrogators get "creative".
No, what is meant was that the thought process by which you decided that the re-runs could be fun was molded by your life experiences which before being born would not have formed. That is what I meant.
Also if you think that God might be having fun at our expenses then that is alright but, again, you can only think that because you have experienced living.Quoting TheMadFool
But, with amnesia, it would mean that after every run of your life, your soul remains, which then decides to have another run at life but I want the decision made to be purely rational so that is a big no.
Yes, but that is your opinion, I am sure there is some psycho out there who would have the urge to torture that guy more. You may believe that your opinion is better but whatever the reason for you opinion may be, there is someone who would disagree with, I think, a very plausible reason that it is just more fun to see that guy suffer than to save him.
By saying this, I mean to say that the empathy which compels you to save or kill him is not present in everyone. You are in the majority of those who are sympathetic to the tortured person but being in the majority does not make you right.
Quoting TheMadFool
Please elaborate. I pride myself at being more of a voyeur that just likes to watch people react to funny scenarios than a sadist. It just so happens that most interesting peoples tend to have sad backstories and the funniest scenarios tend to involve suffering. Watching a person get tortured is dull to me but if that person has a red button in front of him while being tortured then "Ooh boy, what will he do?"
My argument is not based on votes. If you fail to see the logic of putting an end to suffering by any means possible, sorry, I can't help you.
By the way you used the word "psycho", not me.
Also, I'm not in a state to discuss the matter further with you. Cheers!
Quoting I love Chom-choms
Good luck with that.
I knew you would say something like that. Well, then please tell me your logic for saving a suffering man's life.
Quoting TheMadFool
I would, if I won't be judged for it afterwards and I don't have any duty to save the person in question, just walk away like nothing happened.
I have known a few people who have committed suicide and try not to be judgemental in seeing what they did as 'wrong'. However, I do see suicide as being one of the worst possible ways to die and would like to find better solutions than to kill myself, if found my life to be completely unbearable.
One of the aspects of it seems to be that it is an act which often occurs in a moment of rash panic. Also, often people who do make a suicide fail and end up disabled or with long lasting health problems. One of the worst scenarios is that of people taking overdoses of Paracetamol and making some kind of recovery, often glad to be alive, only to discover they are likely to die through liver failure.
Part of the ethics of suicide do involve the question of the right to make such a choice and this is extremely complex. Mental health services often step in to forcibly stop people killing themselves through keeping them in hospital under Section, and by putting them on suicide watch observations, if people are perceived as a risk. Of course, the real issue is of being able to measure risk accurately, because the person who is really planning suicide may keep the ideas as a secret.
Aside from any religious aspects of the question is the effects of a suicide on others, and if I was at the point of thinking of suicide that would weigh heavily on my choice. The emotional consequences for family and friends can be devastating and there is even some evidence that people have been bereaved through a suicide being more likely to commit suicide themselves. However, it is likely that the person who commits suicide is in such a difficult place emotionally that they are not able to stop and think clearly. Also, there may be a difference between the person who has fleeting suicidal thoughts and the person who has recurrent or almost permanent suicidal ideation. I believe that there may be better ways forward for managing suicidal unhappiness, but I would not go as far as to say that suicide is absolutely wrong in all circumstances.
That is why I think that the best way to discuss the "right" and "wrong" of an action is from the third person perspective. If you have stakes in a situation then you are bound to be biased. This thought was the beginning of this thought experiment which then led me to conclude that suicide is wrong in all circumstances.
Quoting Jack Cummins
From this, your reason for suicide being right sometimes seems to be one relating to sympathy for that person but I think that sympathy is a bias because not everyone will feel sympathy for that person. So please, dig deeper for a reason against my claim.
I was not really saying that I see suicide as actually 'right', but saying that I would not make judgements or see it as absolutely wrong. I am against definitive ways of seeing acts. I am not sure that I even see any moral acts as absolutes, with murder and rape being the closest possible exceptions. I think that it is all about weighing up the effects of actions, and intentions are important too in considering the nature of morality.
Also, you speak of third person perspective as being more important than the subjective. I believe that both aspects are worth thinking about. The third person analysis is a useful way of looking at the objective aspects. However, I think that looking at the individual person who is on the precipice of suicide is not necessarily about sympathy, but about empathy, in trying to understand the suffering of the person at the moment when they chose to take their own life. I don't believe that it is an easy choice because it is not really that easy to kill oneself. I know someone who took 100 Aspirin tablets and slept for 2 days, and woke up. On the other hand, some people who don't really wish to kill themselves do die accidentally, even though the act may have been a cry for help.
Oh I see what you mean. I won't say you are wrong but I think that it just doesn't sit well me. I mean like you said, a person with suicidal tendencies is in a difficult place emotionally and can't think properly. He is just suffering too much to care about what will come afterwards, if he is saved then so what? He doesn't want to suffer now. It's too painful. It's too much to handle for him. Salvation won't cure him. He has suffered too much. If salvation won't cure him then he should just stop feeling. If he doesn't feel, doesn't think, doesn't want then surely he won't suffer this much.
I imagine this is what goes through a suicidal person's head. I am not sure though, but if it is then I can understand why he would want to die and I think that I might even help him die. However, I have thought about it many times but always, and I mean always, after a few days later, after my feeling of this matter have died down. When I look back at it, I question then decision and my conclusion is that it was wrong. I shouldn't have killed him neither should I have just watched him die. Maybe if I helped him then even if he had lost all hope, he would feel happy again.
My point is that, the empathy on which your argument is based, I have felt it and wanted to do something but that feeling disappears and I question the answer I found. So I find empathy to be an unreliable judge of morality and opt for a rational judge.
Quoting I love Chom-choms
Can you answer the question without bringing in God or any other external source, but by applying only reasoning? Why? Because the existence of God is not really established and/or universally acceptable.
In other words, is there a rationality and sound ethical principles that supports your statement? That is, principles that are based on pure logic and not on some abstract idea of "good" or "bad".
That would be much more "fruitful" from a philosophical viewpoint, don't you think?
For example, if you define ethical behavior as one that "promotes survival and well-beingness" (both physical and non-physical) or "doing major good for the most", can this support your statement?
I believe yes. These principles, by definition, reject an action such as suicide, don't they?
Fair point, then consider it like this: If before being born, your were to learn, by some unknown mean, everything that was going to happen in your life, would you still chooses to be born?
This is basically the same scenario, I made God the one telling you because I just thought that people would roll with it. It was a problem for you so you can see it like this. I am not trying to argue about the existence of God.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I said earlier that a suicide is right only if your situation is objectively wrong. I assume that you mean to say that you don't completely agree with this statement. So I'll elaborate.
A person commits suicide because he/she believes that his life is so bad that it is not worth living with the hope that someday you will be saved, which I understand as, the pleasures that one might experience are not worth all the pain that you would suffer to reach those pleasures. However, this statement is weak because the pleasures that you might experience are dwarfed by the pain you suffer now, like how you become pessimistic after losing many games. You are pessimistic but if you win the next few games then your outlook would change.
My point is that, no matter what we decide as right or wrong, it would not be objectively "right" or "wrong" because that "right" or "wrong" will change depending on the circumstances in our lives and how we feel. Therefore, a suicidal person's judgement of his life's worth is wrong because it is influenced by the circumstances on his life and his depressed outlook on life. At this point, it doesn't matter what is right because I have shown you that, at the very least, suicide is wrong.
Regret is cheating. It's a way of not taking responsibility for your life and the things you've done and not done. That being said, I've sometimes thought that things would have been better if I died when I was 12. Problem with that - my children would never have been born. The universe is better with them in it.
There is no rule book to life. I think suicide should be an unstigmatized personal choice. There are many reasons why suicide might be preferable to life - pain, illness, war, old age.... However, people who want to kill themselves are often making the decision based on a situational crisis and with some support through the mess they may find equanimity and joy again. I was trained in suicide intervention counselling and have met many suicidal people. Most of them did not go through with it.
But the question, whether you choose not to live if you knew what your life was going to be like, is quite different. It's really about whether you believe it is worth having the life experience. I'm on the fence about this. Never having been born does not sound all that bad. But it's a ridiculous hypothetical no one can ever enact, so it's a fairly pointless speculative exercise.
[quote=“SEP on Camus”] “There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that” (MS, 3). One might object that suicide is neither a “problem” nor a “question,” but an act. A proper, philosophical question might rather be: “Under what conditions is suicide warranted?” And a philosophical answer might explore the question, “What does it mean to ask whether life is worth living?” as William James did in The Will to Believe. For the Camus of The Myth of Sisyphus, however, “Should I kill myself?” is the essential philosophical question. For him, it seems clear that the primary result of philosophy is action, not comprehension. His concern about “the most urgent of questions” is less a theoretical one than it is the life-and-death problem of whether and how to live.
Camus sees this question of suicide as a natural response to an underlying premise, namely that life is absurd in a variety of ways. As we have seen, both the presence and absence of life (i.e., death) give rise to the condition: it is absurd to continually seek meaning in life when there is none, and it is absurd to hope for some form of continued existence after death given that the latter results in our extinction. But Camus also thinks it absurd to try to know, understand, or explain the world, for he sees the attempt to gain rational knowledge as futile. Here Camus pits himself against science and philosophy, dismissing the claims of all forms of rational analysis: “That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh” (MS, 21).
These kinds of absurdity are driving Camus’s question about suicide, but his way of proceeding evokes another kind of absurdity, one less well-defined, namely, the “absurd sensibility” (MS, 2, tr. changed). This sensibility, vaguely described, seems to be “an intellectual malady” (MS, 2) rather than a philosophy. He regards thinking about it as “provisional” and insists that the mood of absurdity, so “widespread in our age” does not arise from, but lies prior to, philosophy. Camus’s diagnosis of the essential human problem rests on a series of “truisms” (MS, 18) and “obvious themes” (MS, 16). But he doesn’t argue for life’s absurdity or attempt to explain it—he is not interested in either project, nor would such projects engage his strength as a thinker. “I am interested … not so much in absurd discoveries as in their consequences” (MS, 16). Accepting absurdity as the mood of the times, he asks above all whether and how to live in the face of it. “Does the absurd dictate death” (MS, 9)? But he does not argue this question either, and rather chooses to demonstrate the attitude towards life that would deter suicide. In other words, the main concern of the book is to sketch ways of living our lives so as to make them worth living despite their being meaningless.[/quote]
Camus on Suicide
Using slightly different language (with influence from the East), the root of suffering is desire and to be born is to desire. Cf four noble truths Life is suffering and, in a more existential sort of way, the sickness onto death. One possible answer is self-abnegation - the cessation of desire through the elimination of the self (the end of consciousness). If death is not the way out, then you must find the other door. If death is the way out, then death is the most expedient end. But even if this is so, Camus’ question remains: can we justify the continued suffering.
In a world of radical freedom, where the extent of our moral regard is merely the self, suicide is simply one choice of many. In a world where we are responsible for others, suicide takes a different role. Even if the hypothetical is to choose to have never been, if the consequence is on others and our morality extends to others, the answer is not so straight forward. Must we be to satisfy the needs of others? Can the demands of others extend so far as to compel our very existence? We certainly know that their choices can bring us into this world, but are we obligated to abide (and indeed affirm) those choices?
I would also point to this article on intergenerational justice as a sort of placeholder for the idea of obligations between existent beings and non-existent beings. That is, currently alive people to already dead people and people yet to be born, but in this case, might also be extended to people yet to be given the choice about whether to come into existence.
[quote=“SEP on Intergenerational Justice”]
Central questions of intergenerational justice are: first, whether present generations can be duty-bound because of considerations of justice to past and future people; second, whether other moral considerations should guide those currently alive in relating to both past and future people; and third, how to interpret the significance of past injustices in terms of what is owed to the descendants of the direct victims of the injustices.
[/quote]
Intergenerational Justice
My simple argument:
1. (Some kinds of) suffering are unbearable
2. We don't want unbearable things (duh!)
Ergo,
3. We should do something to reduce/eliminate such forms of suffering
My empathy for people agrees with you. I too believe that suicide is a preferable end to the pain that might come from living but I don't see it as "the right thing to do". Earlier, I said
Quoting I love Chom-choms
So, for me, the right thing to de is based not on my feeling but on my rationale independent of emotion. I accept that I feel emotion and am compelled to pity and empathies with a tortured soul but as the judge of whether to save a life or not, if I find a reason that does not depend on feeling, which is absolute and independent of the changing moral beliefs of the people then that action is right.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting Tom Storm
You are misunderstanding. Just because I believe that suicide is always wrong doesn't, for me, mean that it should not be done. I empathize with those people who are suffering and I would not stop a person if they were trying to save a tortured person neither would I try to stop a person from committing suicide. I am not telling you to de the right thing, I am just telling you what the right thing is. You are free and welcome to do the wrong thing. If you kill yourself then I would regard that as being wrong but I would understand what compelled you to do that. I am not forcing my beliefs of morality onto you. I judge the morality of an action on basis of reason but I am human and thus my emotions will affect my decisions when I have to make them but I want to, at least, recognize that I was wrong.
Correctamundo!
There's this general attitude towards suicide that it's immoral but then the same people who hold this belief are sympathetic towards the practice of putting down animals that are in extreme pain. Something's off.
Right! It's, as some say, the last choice. In other words, th suicider is all out of options.
Ok, but why should suffering be prevented?
Because suffering is bad, of course. We all want to avoid pain and suffering, it is the core of any action. All actions originate from this desire to avoid pain. That is absolute for us, we the living beings will avoid pain. Still, we don't live just to avoid pain, we live to feel pleasure. So, we also recognize that pain is necessary for pleasure. Winning a tournament after practicing very hard gives us pleasure, which is heightened by that pain we went through to achieve it.
With the above analogy, suicide is like a person who tried harder than anyone else to win the tournament but he still lost. He tried harder still for the next tournament but in the end he still lost. He finally gave up and quit.
That person who tried harder that anyone did so because he believed is the promise of greater pleasure that would come if he won, that it would all be worth it. Just like a suicidal person who believes that if he keeps on living then all his pain would end, then it would all have been worth it.
However, even after trying so hard, he still loses twice at this point, he is convinced that maybe there is pleasure waiting for him at the end or even if there is, he won't be able to get there, so he quits. Similarly, a suicidal person is also convinced that there is nothing waiting for him at the end , even if there is, he can't handle it anymore, so he too quits, i.e., he kills himself.
Does this change the fact that the pleasure waiting for that person after all the pain disappears. No, if he had lived, if had had tried at the next tournament, then maybe he would have won and would have felt the pleasure that he suffered for. Even by your logic, anyone who lives to avoid pain should not kill himself because that person lives for pleasure and to avoid pain( if he claims that he lives only to avoid pain, then he is hypocritical) and if he bears the pain then that sufferer is guaranteed immense pleasure that suffered for.
For the nonbeliever, in naturalistic terms, what makes suicide "always wrong" (i.e. categorically immoral without exception)?
Quoting 180 Proof
Please elaborate. I don't understand. If you believe in the supernatural then how does it relate to suicide being always wrong.
I'm with you on suffering (in the present) for happiness (in the future). Notice however that the best-case-scenario is happiness (in the present) for (more) happiness (in the future). That says a lot, doesn't it?
I guess what you described of suffering-happiness is about meaningful suffering - to come out of it knowing it (suffering) was worth it. Again, it doesn't have to be that way, no? Simply put, suffering of any kind, a little or a lot, is meaningless. There's no necessity, as far as I can tell, for suffering to be a part of happiness. That, as of now, there are occasions in which one has to bear some pain to be happy is an altogether different story, a story of contingency rather than necessity.
Given all that, a suicider reasons thus: not only is all forms of suffering empty of meaning, I (the suicider) have to bear more than that which is due to me and can endure. That's just too much, right?
The reason why people have a dim view of suicide, I surmise, is because if someone else killed you, that would be murder; that in taking one's own life, you do kill a person, even if that person were yourself, people, I suppose, find it difficult to distinguish suicide from murder.
However, in my previous post addressed to you, people are ok with killing if it ends suffering of the kind that can't be dealt with in a way that preserves life e.g. euthanazing severely injured animals. If that's the case, suicide can't be considered murder and everyone should simply accept it as part of nature's happiness-suffering equation.
That said, suicide is a problem in a social context. Why are there suicides? Why are suicide rates rising? These questions boil down to the question, why are people so unhappy? Something's terribly wrong with a society that makes people sad to the point that they no longer want to live anymore? Suicides then are a symptom of a sick society; a society, is in essence, designed to create an environment for individuals to, well, flourish. I reckon most people when they encounter suicides take this to be a personal failing, being as they are part of the very community that furnished the reasons for someone becoming suicidal. Guilt, it seems, is the key to suicides being viewed in poor light.
If I didn't like the "movie" of my future life or didn't find it worthwile, I most probably not choose to live that life. I would examine an alternative "movie" of a future life and maybe I would chose that! :grin:
Quoting I love Chom-choms
No problem with that. Anyway, this is a hypothesis, something imaginary ...
Quoting I love Chom-choms
But the title of your topic is Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances. Have you changed your mind in the meantime? :smile:
Anyway, you maybe mean what I also thought, that is there are cases where there is no meaning in staying alive, e.g. extreme suffering, being in a coma, incurable disease, etc. But no would call a "suicide" stopping life in those cases.
Quoting I love Chom-choms
Yes, this is about what usualy happens. In most cases it is something purely psychological, extreme depression or grief, severe mental disease, madness, etc. But there have been also cases in which people have committed suicide because they have lost their whole fortune (big depression in 1929) or evrything valuable in their life (their partner in life) so their life had no meaning anymore for them. Another case is the Japanase who were committing seppuku (harakiri) --I don't know if they still do-- which was a kind of ritual or tradition and it showed bravery rather than a psychological problem. Kamikazie also were a similar case, an act of bravery. Soldiers, in general, can behave like that in wars. But all these acts of "bravery" are moments of "madness" (not as a disease, but just "going nuts"). They are simply irrational acts.
Anyway, nothing in all these case is rational! Only irrationality can lead to suicide. And this
supports my point that rationality (involved in ethical behaviour) rejects actions such as suicide. In other words, suicide is an unethical action.
Quoting I love Chom-choms
Well, there's some truth in it, but is not a strong argument since we can't know what (kind of) circumstances these are or would be and if they are going to occur.
So people who quit tournaments are morally wrong now?
Well, if that was the case, then why would anyone commit suicide in such circumstances?
Quoting TheMadFool
I understand what you mean but can one truly know pleasure without knowing pain? Just think about your most happy memory, I bet that the circumstances surrounding the memory involved pain.
Quoting TheMadFool
Yes, to that is too much but by the standards of the suicider and I have reasoned that the suicider is mentally unstable, he is depressed and pessimistic. Just because he thinks that it is Too much doesn't mane it too much.
Empathetically speaking, yes I would want to let him die if I can't help him any other way but I have said this before, morality based on feelings is unreliable as it changes and my morality is based on rationality.
Quoting 180 Proof
I just used God because I thought people would roll with it. Without reference to supernatural, my argument is that: TOOOO LOOOONGG!!!! :rage:
Seriously though, the only supernatural element I used was God and my argument holds without it. I say that the judge of morality should be rationality independent of emotion. I argued that if a person endures pain, it does so with the promise of future pleasure. Killing yourself is an option which means that the present pain outweighs the extent of the future pleasure that the depressed can imagine but the depressed person can't think straight and thus just because he thinks that he can't doesn't mean that he actually can't. Therefore I have made it clear(I think) that his reason for suicide is flawed. So, he should not do so.
You misunderstand me. The point is all suffering is meaningless - it's possible to imagine a world without it. Were it (suffering) meaningful i.e. it serves a purpose, it's a necessary part of life, this should be impossible. People commit suicide because they know this to be true and find life, as it is now, insufferable.
Quoting I love Chom-choms
It is too much! Objectively so. The global distribution of happiness and suffering is unequal and this is true for even within smaller subdivisions of the human family - you can't expect a person to undergo torture and be ok with it when someone in another house, neighborhood, community, state, country pops pills for just a headache.
As for morality, feelings, and rationality, remember suffering and happiness are emotions.
Read the whole thing, I say that suicide is right only if the situation is objectively wrong but then proceed to say that by the standard of rationality, it is impossible to judge any situation to be objectively "right" or "wrong".
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I think we can say that they are suffering emotional pain, which still is pain. So my argument should hold.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
This one is interesting. The reasoning behind seppuku is that it is better to die than to live is shame. To live in shame would be painful and hell-like for an honorable samurai, which is to say that it is better for a honorable warrior to die than to live a painful life and endure it. Again, just because that samurai thinks that he can't or that he shouldn't doesn't mean that he is right. It is more like for the samurai, both living or suicide is a sin. So whether he kills or doesn't kill he would be doing the wrong thing. Same for the Kamikaze.
Oh sh*t, I see. I am not wrong in saying that he should not kill himself but I think that that doesn't mean that he shouldn't die or live. I get what you mean. I think that the person who is suffering can't decide whether he should decide to live or die, but it can be decided by a third-party. I a heads up, I am not saying that he should not kill himself. I am saying that if he kills himself then it is a sin but he should commit that sin instead of placing his hope a promise of a better future which may or may not happen.
Right, loss normally results in grief, but not necesserily. There are cases of loss in which just realizing that you have lost everything is enough to put an end to your life. In Greece, there have been hundreds of suicides at the peak of our economic crisis in 2010-2014, committed only because persons lost suddenly everything and mainly their houses seized by tht state or banks because of unpaid taxes, loans, etc.) This kind of losses don't involve grief. They lead to "cold" suicides.
Quoting I love Chom-choms
There might be also such cases. But as I said, it was mainly a ritual. It was enforced by tradition and moral rules and it was performed by people of a certain status who were found guilty of a serious felony. It was considred a privilege!
***
So, where does all that lead us? Is suicide sometimes justifiable (and independent of ethics) or is it always an unethical action? :smile:
Wrong or not. Suicide is still a human right.
Well, kinda. Both the dim social view and the legal proscription against suicide have their origin in Jewish foundational ethics, wherein the divine command "thou shall not kill" has absolute force. But, within both Judaism and traditional Christianity, the "theology of life" exceeds and in fact predates that deontological ethic. The foundational virtue of the Jewish, and so of the Judeo-Christian, worldview is the unwavering devotion to life itself. Surely we are all familiar with the old Jewish toast: "L' chaim"/"To life". In the northwest Semitic religious traditions, this virtue predates even YHWH, Ba'al, Elohim, and all other early beliefs. As someone raised Roman Catholic, I can personally attest to the centrality of the Church's "theology of life" to the chatechism...this was simply carried over from Judaism into the early church. The strength of the social and legal abhorrence of suicide within our Western cultures is evidence of the depth with which the Judeo-Christian worldview had early on penetrated our 'western' cultural consciousness, and so effected sensibilities both social and legal.
Quoting Jack Cummins
My opinion, Jack, is that the state utterly exceeds it's authority in these matters, and should be forced to desist. This does not fall within the mandate of government, nor is it properly within the purview of our common law.
This is simply incorrect and a bad translation in any event. There were times the Bible specifically commanded the killing of people or permitted the killing of people (war, crimes, self-defense, etc.). Bad Christian ethics do not replace what actual Jews (then and now) thought about Biblical directives.
Also, Jews say that the commandments were given so that you may live and that you should not, therefore, die by them. Here is an approachable enough article on the topic of Pikuach Nefesh - saving a life (including your own). Wiki on Pikuach Nefesh
These religious directives came later, though, and were overlayed upon a religious sensibility which placed life abouve all other virtues. No human undertaking, religious or otherwise, continues without being perverted by "new" minds coming in. The very fact of Pikuach Nefesh evidences the centrality of the ethic of life itself to the core of Jewish religious cosmology, don't you think?
What if I contain a deadly virus that will die with me the instant I die or else infect others and spread like wildfire. A group of innocent people are coming towards me and there's nothing I can do to stop them save kill myself. Surely it is right - or at least, not wrong - for me to kill myself under those circumstances?
I’m not sure what you mean by “later”. Less than 50 “lines”?
[quote=“Deuteronomy 7:1”]
When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; and when the LORD thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.
[/quote]
Deut. 7:1
[quote=“Deuteronomy 5:16”]
16 Thou shalt not murder.
[/quote]
Deut. 5:16
That explains a lot. The Judeo-Christian respect for life gets in the way of suicide becoming an acceptable exit strategy but, if you ask me, respect for life must have, as a central aspect, so-called QOL and whenever QOL is given due consideration, suicide becomes morally justified.
Except it seems with capital punishment and war. And there are a range of other commands that warrant a death sentence. I think the notion thou shalt not kill is cherry picked as these things always are. I don't think any 'thou shalts' explain the suicide question.
I mean that the ethic of life as an imperative in the NW Semitic, "Canaanite", religious sensibility seems to me, to predate any of the biblical writings significantly, not that it precedes within what is a heavily redacted text in the first place.
Fair enough, though. Not ever having studied Classical Hebrew, I have indeed been made to understand that such is a better translation.
The thing is if you have to go back to pre-codification of Torah times to talk about what the Jewish ethic is, you are talking a period well before the Roman invasion and the formation of Christianity (500 bce vs like 70 bce to 200 ce). It feels unfair to claim that the Jewish ethic did not include things like the death penalty, self-defense, and holy war at the time of early Christianity (or the end of late temple period). You’d have to engage in a significant amount of “no true Scotsman” and “just soism” to get there.
By the by, the Ten Commandments in Exodus are followed a few lines later by capital crimes (in case you might think that Deuteronomy was the last addition to the Torah and so is somehow a less credible of ancient Jewish/Israelite ethics).
No, that's not what I am claiming at all. Certainly, clearly these "torot" were present in Judaism in the 1st century CE, and had been since the Babylonian period. There remains, however, a clear ethic of life that in my view predates the Yahwist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly writings, and seems to form the basis for Jewish, resultantly, for Christian cosmology. Perhaps I should have followed my gut, and not included the biblical quotation in my post...it seems to have been distracting from my point, which was not the precise meaning of the decalogal injunction. I guess my point is, that an act of suicide violates none of the philosophical bases upon which our legal code rests. The only explanation for such an act's proscription by our law, is by the undue and misplaced influence of our Judeo-Christian religion.
Suicide in real life is more like vomiting. It something that happens to a life when theres no other choice, no matter what the suicidal person wants.
Most suicides happen very quickly, most aren't planned in advance. But for those that are planned in advance, the vomit analogy is still right. Instead of a sudden immediate vomit, its that feeling of being sick in bed with that sicky feeling that you know will not go away until you puke. I believe people who plan suicide are like people in bed like that. They know they're going to puke and there's no away around it, but theyre just present enough to make sure there's no mess. Maybe they set a wastebasket next to them, or sit in the bathroom.
1. Suicide, if it's illegal, it was, carries/carried a penalty less severe than murder. Why? It isn't murder, close to it but not quite.
2. If one is a murder victim, the perp will either be sent to the gallows or is looking at life imprisonment without parole.
Put simply, suicide is, in a sense, both murder (2) and not murder (1).
Too, we could view suicide as, like my dear father-in-law likes to say, a clarion call to address a pressing concern which is that, in our world today, "there are fates worse than death."
Here's the deal: LIFE,
1. Makes suffering a warning sign of death. [avoid death]
2. Makes suffering worse than death. [avoid death/pursue death]
It seems that life wants us to avoid death at all costs. One way, a surefire one, is to make the warning (suffering) worse than that which it warns about (death). That makes sense right? The bark is worse than the bite.
Reminds me of the animation movie Zootopia :point: Meet Mr. Big, Fru Fru Scene
The downside is that when suffering reaches a certain level, a threshold, the sufferer opts to suicide. It seems LIFE considers a few suicides is a small price to pay for many lives saved in the process.
I think that the person who lost his/her property probably surmised that whatever happens now, after he/she has gone bankrupt , will be too much for him. He/she doesn't want to work hard to get back to his/her initial socioeconomic standing. Maybe, he/she just thought that, " what was it all for? Didn't I work so hard to get a nice and peaceful life." The person suffered in the past with the promise of a happy future which because of the economic crisis, they feel like they have not been paid back for the pain they endured. In which case we can conclude that the their suffering has been meaningless. If their suffering has been meaningless then I don't know.
I feel like the I have made this whole argument redundant because I said that suicide is wrong but one can do it even if it is the wrong thing because we can't suffer too much. Then where does my argument of ethics begin, what do I decide the ethnicity on. Rationality alone is not enough, I have to have a reason which becomes the foundation of the ethics I promote but that foundation will be based on feelings.
If I say that the foundation is to not suffer meaninglessly, then it should be alright for that person to kill themselves.
I am not so sure about my statement that Suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances. I haven't changed my mind but I am wavering.
Maybe you don't have to. You may question instead whether an action can be actually called a suicide or not.
The definition of suicide is "The action of killing oneself intentionally" (Oxford LEXICO) (Other dictionaries give a very similar definition).
So, here's an example: There's a clause in hospitals according to which you can sign a document in which you refuse to receive a CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation), e.g. during your operation, etc., if this is would be needed. On a less official basis, you can also refuse to do chemiotherapy (for cancer), a Coronary bypass surgery, etc. Can these cases be labelled as "suicides"?
It is good that you brought this up, shifting the focus a bit from justifiability to the impetus behind a suicidal action. You seem to indicate a belief that suicide cannot be a rational decision, but rather is always emotionally-driven and irrational. Without having any data as a basis, I cannot say whether your position is correct from a statistical standpoint, but I question whether there might not be instances of suicide being prompted out of something other than the desperation of emotional furor.
There is a current PF thread, by @javra, on the subject of teleology (specifically, "On the "Ontology of Goal Driven Determinacy") which I have been reading with some interest. Do you not suppose that the consideration of suicide by an individual might be caused by what might be called "teleological deficiency" or "teleological omission (of either occurrence or performance)" , even where there is no such desperation involved? For instance, had a person developed the idea that, given his personal belief system, there existed an imperative to achieve done goal during his life, and in the fullness of time it had become fairly clear that such a goal was either unattainable or not likely to be attained, could such not be said to cause a deficit of purpose which might render suicide a rational, and not a purely emotional, decision? Should we tell such a person that they should continue to live a life which appears to them utterly purposeless? Should we tell him to adjust his entire belief system in order to shift their concept of their personal life's purpose, and is that something even possible at a later stage in life?
The phenomena of Seppuku/Harakiri have been mentioned (as they were bound to be) above. Is not such an act prompted by a teleological performance omission, a failure of achievement of purpose? Is this not a rational decision, though certainly with emotional overtones attending thereto, on the part of the actor? As such, cannot this act be said to be justifiable? Then, if a teleological performance omission can be said to render both rational and justifiable an act of suicide, cannot a teleological occurrence omission or a teleological deficiency, that is: a failure to distinguish a purpose or an inadequacy of purpose, respectively, render an act of suicide (a) rational and (b) justifiable, as well? I would truly like to have several opinions about this question.
Does anyone owe anyone else his or her life?
Does anyone have a duty to suffer for anyone else's benefit (or to forestall anyone else's prospective suffering)?
Does the mere fact (i.e. imposition) of being born render each one of us a slave -- to family, to community, to the species?
It seems to me that, in the absence of answering any of the above in the affirmative, there's nothing more selfish, and therefore more hypocritical, than stigmatizing suicide as "a selfish act." Even if it is, so what? Unless the 'collateral damage' of killing oneself is premeditated & also irreparable (which it very rarely is), so what? 'The world', after all, could stand to be relieved -- freely by self-selection -- of as many desperately (i.e. pathologically) miserable people as possible; gratitude rather than scorn (or taboo-fear) being the more appropriate, more civilized (i.e. pre-modern, pre-JCI), response.
Perhaps killing oneself is simply an act of self-defense against 'involuntary self-torment'. If so, reparable collateral damage is a reasonable trade-off (risk), no?
I'm not sure, I think that it might depend on how a person thinks. If it was me, who refused any such thing then I would have done so with the expectation of death but I don't think that everyone thinks that deep. They might refuse to do so because they think that it is inappropriate or that the side-effects are too adverse but the thought that they might die doesn't even cross their mind.
So, if they didn't even thinks about their death while they decide to refuse these services then it is practically a suicide but you can't really blame them for it.
Also, I am sorry for such a delayed reply. I had more free time until a few days ago but now my tests are here so I am a lot more busy.
To my parents, yes I do.
At least, by my standards
Quoting Natherton
In general, I don't think so but if you had a sensible and appropriate responsibility in the cause of their suffering then I think that you should have a responsibility to suffer for their sake. Keep in mind, just because their suffering was caused by you doesn't mean you have a responsibility to suffer for them, it has to be a sensible responsibility which you have.
Quoting Natherton
To some extent, YES. If you are born into this world, then you do have a responsibility to obey your family, community and the species as a whole. It is a social contract. You have your parents to thank for everything they did for you when growing up, your community for providing a safe environment and facilities which your parents couldn't have afforded without them and your species for being at the top of the food chain and all the inventions that give you this comfortable life.
Now if you view this as slavery then that is your opinion.
OK, but my point was much simpler. I'll just summarize it with a new, concrete question: "Is asking for (legally performed) euthanasia considered as suicide?"
(Euthanasia: The painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. (Oxford LEXICO))
What's your standard? That you owe your parents? Why? Because they gave life to you?
Honestly, I would call a painless death an ideal suicide. If you can die a painless death and be free from your suffering then it is the best. I don't know if it is right or not but it is definitely my ideal form of suicide.
Well, you owe a person who gave you a chocolate something of equal value. That, I think, we can agree on.
By my standards, my parents gave me so many things and I will assume that yours did too. Now I don't know how my parents feel about me. It could be that they feel like me just doing whatever I want or simply living is enough compensation for them. Maybe they do that? I don't know. As long as they don't say that, in my mind, it is better to think that you owe them something rather that not.
Yes, I agree. I think I owe my parents too! I'm very happy with myself thoughsometimes I think how the hell they could have shot two children in the present kind of world, without much future hope. But then again, there always is hope!
I do too. My answer to that is they they didn't really think about it. You know, like they didn't question their existence because of their faith in God and thus their duty is to God. If tells to procreate then we do so.
The gods creted all for us indeed (and for all life). Everything will be restored in the way they intended it all to be. I hope... :smile:
Are you for or against a suicide pill?
Exactly! So you don't think killing yourself is killing God's creation? Well, of course it is (and in a sense He jills Himself), but should that be a reason not to do it? (Please note that Im not promoting suicide!)
I would call a painless death an ideal death! :smile:
I don't really believe in Gods, I am a Hindu. My parents believe in gods but I don't actually believe.
In Hinduism, it is OK to kill gods creations. There is a whole story about it.
Shiva and Parvati were travelling through Dharti(Earth) one day, when Parvati saw a procession of people carry a man who looked to be sleeping. Parvati asked the mob, " Where are you carrying the man and Why?" A man from the mob replied," The man is dead. We are on are way to cremate him."
" What? Why did he die? That is terrible!", Parvati replied true to herself, as she was the goddess of fertility, the idea of taking away a life was against her creed.
" What can we say? Lord Shiva willed it and so he died." The man replied.
Parvati went to her husband, Shiva, and angrily said," How terrible, Why would you take anyones life?"
Shiva regretted displeasing his wife but all life was destined to end. So he decided that instead of just dying instantaneously, all living beings would die because of a cause.
If a deer is eaten by a lion, a man kill another man or if he takes his own life, then too it is all according to the will of Shiva.
Basically, Shiva used to just names on a death note but now he specifies the reason.
As someone with familial Alzheimer's who has buried a family and brother with early onset alzheimer's
I ask, do you know all circumstances?
Posterior Cortical Atrophy can produce unbelievable pain and central sleep apnea can cause multiple
death experiences but I am not complaining.
I have witnessed much worse situations in many people brought on by life experiences.
Spend time listening to others.
Do not try to fix problems but listen and be there for them.
AND NEVER JUDGE THEM, out loud
BUT was I ALWAYS wrong? Not possible! So I retract my apology :)
I believe that the spy was justified in ending his life. OP destroyed. :fire:
1. Killing a human is wrong.
2. Killing yourself is killing a human being.
Ergo,
3. Suicide is wrong
B. Rights/Suicide
1. I have full rights over my life.
2. If I have full rights over my life, I'm free to end my life as and when I please and I wouldn't be wrong.
Ergo,
3. I'm free to end my life as and when I please and I wouldn't be wrong. [Suicide isn't wrong]
C. The Nedlog rule
1. Do unto others as you would like others to do unto you [the golden rule]
2. Do unto yourself as you would like yourself to do unto others [the nedlog rule] A suicider wouldn't want to kill others; he is, therefore, obligated not to hurt himself. [Suicide is wrong]
I dare you to provide actual primary religious scriptural references for the claim that suicide is wrong.
It's forbidden in judaism.
?? ?? ????. ????"??? ?????????????? ????? ???????? ???????? ???????????, ??? ???????? ???????? ????????????? ???? ???????:
??? ?? ???? HOWEVER YOUR BLOOD — Although I have permitted you to take the life of cattle yet your blood I will surely require from him amongst you who sheds his own blood (see Bava Kamma 91b). Link
Google Bava Kamma 91b
1 is the loneliest number! I feel melancholia setting in. Am I going to divide myself? :grin:
In Plato's Phaedo, the act is wrong because it puts asunder what the divine has brought together. The proposed exceptions to the prohibition are presented as respectful arguments brought forward as a human desire for a different outcome in a particular situation. That is what a human being can do.
But that means humans are also involved with what continues to live. The argument with the divine is leverage of some kind; Not understood before it is applied. Not understood very well after that either.
You forgot the other three: to wit:
" Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.
Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving [ta?h?, "thirst"] which leads to re-becoming, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for becoming, craving for disbecoming.
Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, non-reliance on it.
Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is this noble eightfold path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration."
Of course, if you don't believe in karma or rebirth, you might conclude than easier way to end suffering would be to commit suicide.
BTW, i haven't read the entire thread, but I haven't noticed anyone mentioning the issue of the suffering caused if you commit suicide to those who might care about you. Of course, if no one cares,,,
I think it is confused to put it in moral terms. People don't want to continue suffering. Or in the I would rather not live scenario, they don't want to experience X. And it is obviously quite a strong emotional/desire rejection of that life or living. It's neither a rational nor a moral decision - which by the way does not mean it is irrational. It is non-rational.
Suicidal people are generally not arguing in favor of no longer living and then once they have a good argument killing themselves. They want to stop living, they desire it.
And if someone really did not want to live, I wouldn't want them to live for me. Or better put, while a part of me might hate the idea and fact of not having them around, I do not want them to stay alives, while suffering in ways they hate, for me. I think that is an immoral demand. Live and suffer for me.
But it’s not anyone’s choice. It’s outside the realm of choice, like a fatal heart attack. There are behaviors that look like choices that don't take into account how biologically determined they are. We’re talking about a kind of suffering that is, for the most part, outside the realm of anyone else’s experience.
For an immortal person, suicide is simply wanting to be mortal! When an immortal person commits suicide, s/he doesn't have to die, s/he just has to want to die (desire a mortal life).
In a sense we, our lot, are immortals who've committed suicide because we're mortal!