the rationality and morality of suicide

[dogfood]

1) do you think suicide can ever be a rational decision? if so under what circumstances?
2) do you think suicide can ever be the right thing to do morally speaking? if so under what circumstances?

also please don't just say it's wrong because it is. all opinions are welcome but should have reasons to back up them up.

 

[lostNfound]

Under many circumstances. Not all victims of suicide have gone mad and lost their minds.
Mostly, they are still capable of rational judgment when they make the decision to go forth.

Talking about suicide being the 'right thing', morally is always a tough one.
It depends on how you have or haven't been effected by it, whether it be directly or indirectly.
Under what circumstance? The answer to your previous question is going to always come from a completely circumstantial point of view.

Sometimes, I think in some cases whomever it was that took their own life was brave to do so, in other cases depending on the situation i think the person was a coward.
These are my perceptions of the matter at hand from my own perspective.

Every case is it's and can not be labeled as if it were, IMO.

 

[AfterGlow]

I believe suicide is only justified when you are dying of a terminal illness and you want to choose a humane way of ending life. Under any other circumstances, the chance that things could improve is reason enough to continue living. The end of life is final and will come soon enough, so no life should be taken when there are any other options.

 

[dogfood]

the chance that things could improve is reason enough to continue living.

what if the chance of improving is incredibly small? we could all be vaporized by a nuclear apocalypse tomorrow but im not going to build a fallout shelter and hide in it because the chance of that happening is too small. also terminal cancer can sometimes have spontaneous remission... but for 99.99%(or whatever the percent many be) of cases it leads to a horrible painful death. so should those people hold out for that chance and live through the pain even though the chance for remission is exceedingly small?

hypothetical: someone kidnaps you and says: im going to give you a choice, you can press button 1 and with 100% certainty i will kill you painlessly right now. pressing button 2 you will have a 99.99999% of living for another 50 years enduring the most painful torture imaginable but with a .00001% of being given a paradise island in the caribbean with everything you could ever need and the freedom to go home if you so choose.
which is more appealing to you?

 

[AfterGlow]

well... if you commit suicide... you'll never know whether that small chance would have payed off. If it's not going to, you're dead anyways. So you might as well take a chance on survival.

 

[dogfood]

well... if you commit suicide... you'll never know whether that small chance would have payed off. If it's not going to, you're dead anyways. So you might as well take a chance on survival.

so why would you commit suicide if you have terminal illness? there is a small chance you could spontaneously get better or you where miss diagnosed. most medical tests have a small margin of error.

 

[AfterGlow]

assume that the medical tests are correct and your progressive symptoms confirm the terminal diagnosis... so there is NO chance of recuperation... then suicide is simply facing the inevitable on your own terms

 

[dogfood]

assume that the medical tests are correct and your progressive symptoms confirm the terminal diagnosis... so there is NO chance of recuperation... then suicide is simply facing the inevitable on your own terms

it would depend on the overall balance of the good and bad things to come. but if there is no chance or recovery and it's painful then i think it could be rational to commit suicide.

but what of morality? what if your suicide no matter how much longer you have left to live will cause other people (namely your family/friends) more suffering than if you hadn't killed yourself? at what point does your pain outweigh the pain that others will suffer as a result of your actions?

 

[AfterGlow]

its a judgment call. if your family and friends truly care for you, they will want you to check out painlessly albeit a little early. nobody is gonna want you to hang around to die suffering

but what of morality? what if your suicide no matter how much longer you have left to live will cause other people (namely your family/friends) more suffering than if you hadn't killed yourself? at what point does your pain outweigh the pain that others will suffer as a result of your actions?

 

[L2R]

I believe suicide is only justified when you are dying of a terminal illness and you want to choose a humane way of ending life. Under any other circumstances, the chance that things could improve is reason enough to continue living. The end of life is final and will come soon enough, so no life should be taken when there are any other options.

agreed.

 

[vegan]

I believe suicide is only justified when you are dying of a terminal illness and you want to choose a humane way of ending life

have you ever felt (truely) suicidal?

no?
i thought so

and it's the same for the immense majority of cases


being against suicide without having felt those feelings is like being against drugs because your kindergarten teacher told you so.
it's an opinion on something you know nothing about


no need to tell me about how much it hurts the ones you leave behing and so on
my mom's brother killed himself
i know very well both sides of the topic

no life should be taken when there are any other options.

dictating someone's life is as bad as dictating his death

each individual must be able to choose if he wants to live or no without witch hunters telling him that they know better

 

[Mr Wobble]

have you ever felt (truely) suicidal?

no?
i thought so

and it's the same for the immense majority of cases


being against suicide without having felt those feelings is like being against drugs because your kindergarten teacher told you so.
it's an opinion on something you know nothing about


no need to tell me about how much it hurts the ones you leave behing and so on
my mom's brother killed himself
i know very well both sides of the topic

dictating someone's life is as bad as dictating his death

each individual must be able to choose if he wants to live or no without witch hunters telling him that they know better

I couldn't agree more.

 

[Changed]

I support anybody's decision to commit suicide. It is up to you, and only you, whether you want to continue living.

Rationally: if someone does not want to live, they can and should end their life.

 

[Mr Wobble]

1) do you think suicide can ever be a rational decision? if so under what circumstances?
2) do you think suicide can ever be the right thing to do morally speaking? if so under what circumstances?

Captain Oates is an obvious example of a suicide that most people would probably regard as rational and moral.

I would only regard suicide immoral where it unnecessarily caused a substantial degree of suffering to someone else (say dependant children).

If anyone of any state of mind, sane or otherwise, wants to kill themselves and doing so wouldn't greatly increase someone else's suffering, than I can't see that as immoral.

Immoral actions are ones that adversely affect others - one can not be immoral to oneself (even a putative 'future self').

 

[rm-rf]

1) do you think suicide can ever be a rational decision? if so under what circumstances?

1) Greek Stoics, whose philosophical set extended to the Romans later on. Stoics would be known to commit suicide as a form of political protest when liberties have been stripped to such a point (perhaps in times of war, etc) that one becomes a slave or some related level of society. You cant oppress anyone thats not alive, now can you? It is said that the Roman senator Cato ripped out his own bowels in a stoical suicide, in order to protest Julius Caesar's claim as Emperor. Caesar would have most certainly pardoned the Senator, however, Cato avoided this as it would have acknowledged Julius Caesar as Emperor (thus, a stoical suicide).

Oddly enough, this exact practice was exhibited on the other side of the world as im sure youve heard of Japanese Seppuku (has also been used to protest the actions of a fuedal lord or emperor).

2) Tyrannical world leaders whose population revolts and breaks out in military coup have often found death by their own choosing to be a better option than facing the wrath of the mob (which would probably include flaying, impalement, crucifixion, perhaps just a light beheading, etc).

3) Spies caught by the enemy (death instantly by cyanide and a bullet, or death after many weeks of arduous torture?).

4) Warfare, especially when your enemy is the imperialistic type planning on using your carcasses as an example to neighboring city states / provinces. Manny occurrences throughout history have included civil militias decapitating their wives and children, and then falling on their own swords, in order to avoid being flayed / impaled / crucified to intimidate nearby towns.

 

[rant*N*rave]

I have tried to kill myself before, so I of course think there's nothing morally wrong with it (although that view would do a 180 if I had kids or a life partner). And it's a rational decision if it's what you want to do for any number of reasons. The times I tried were definitely times of sheer terror, pain, and hopelessness. I honestly cannot even identify with the feeling as I type this - I can physically remember it but I cannot mentally process it as a state of being. I can think about a happy day and feel happy, think about a sad day and feel sad, think about a stressful situation and feel nervous, but I literally cannot even begin to achieve the feeling that I was living then. That's the kind of drastic state of mind most suicidal people are in (those that aren't doing it for a reason like a life sentence in prison or some other binary option of [shitty thing] or death), and that's why most people don't understand it. If you've never been in a torture chamber, forced to face a complete upheaval and destruction of your life, or saddled with psychological problems, you'll never be able to get a real grip on what suicidal people are going through.

 

[law12345]

IMHO it's a personal choice with close-tied and societal ramifications.
The personal choices will differ from life-taker to life-taker.
I see nothing wrong with it (I'm not religious) but I see something wrong with our support networks-both professional and unprofessional that 'allow' people to take their own lives-I think it reflects on society as a whole.

 

[law12345]

I believe suicide is only justified when you are dying of a terminal illness and you want to choose a humane way of ending life. Under any other circumstances, the chance that things could improve is reason enough to continue living. The end of life is final and will come soon enough, so no life should be taken when there are any other options.

sometimes life's problems can be a terminal illness

 

[dogfood]

sometimes life's problems can be a terminal illness

my thinking is along a similar vein. if you think about it we are all terminal, so who defines what terminal is? dying is part of the human condition, we all have an expiration date.

 

[L2R]

have you ever felt (truely) suicidal?

what's this "truely" nonsense? It's relative to the individual and cannot be compared to one another. everyone has there own degrees of torment tolerance. where one's minor setback can invariably be another's unbearable loss.

dictating someone's life is as bad as dictating his death

No one here is dictating anyone else's life. We are merely expressing opinions. I've no inclination to write about the shit i've been through to justify this opinion. I've written plenty about such things on this site as is.

each individual must be able to choose if he wants to live or no without witch hunters telling him that they know better

agreed. now please don't dictate to those of us who feel that suicide is simply not an option outside of euthanasia.