Suicide

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

In the “should I end myself” forum, there was universal support for someone who had thoughts of suicide. This seemed to have worked out well, but it leaves behind the philosophical questions of those who aren’t immediately in a crisis and can afford to contemplate such matters philosophically!

Is suicide really bad?

It seems to me that the negative risk inherent in suicide is, what if you would have felt better tomorrow, or next week, or in 10 years? Isn’t that good part of life worth living for?

What if you were to say this, and the other person were to reply “no, I’ve been living my last 10 years in horrible depressed agony, trying to make things better - but they’ve only gotten worse, and it’s too horrible to bear.” How could you begrudge this person the only recourse that he thought would help?

My fiance’ recently quit her job because it was an awful work environment. I was very supportive, because it was making her miserable, and so you do what you need to do. Isn’t life like this? If “quitting life” is your best hope of getting rid of your agony, what’s wrong with that?

Admittedly, many people contemplate suicide because they are in agony in the moment, and would probably be thankful if they lived to see the next day or week - but there truly are those who are miserable now and know for a fact they will be miserable next week and even next year. Isn’t it selfish for us to refuse them the right?

2

Twiffy - if I knew anything about next year I’d be in Vegas, and I’d have some scantily-clad bimbo typing out my posts.

But I certainly wouldn’t refuse someone that right, if I believed that rights existed. I don’t think anyone here is trampling on anyone’s rights.

3

people respond because suicides are sad. plain and simple.

good or bad have nothing to do with it. its grief that motivates.

4

Yeah, you’re both probably right. It’s just… strange… when you hear someone violently argue that suicide should be illegal (as it currently is), or that no one should ever commit suicide.

It seems like “man, that sucks” is the best way to respond to hearing about suicide, in the context of “it sucks that he was so miserable he felt that he had to kill himself”. Sadness and grief - but not condemnation and judgment, unless you have extra information. If the person killed himself because he was 14 and his girlfriend just broke up with him, yeah, that’s stupid. But in general I think most suicides are more serious, internally, than that, and it’s difficult to have the basis to say “you shouldn’t kill yourself” to someone who seems pretty freakin’ depressed.

5

Suicide is bereft of perfidy or virtue.

Response of an entity either without perspective, or suffering irreparable defect.

From a philosophical view, devoid of emotion, it is to the betterment of those that continue to live, as concerns reciprocity.

That it has become a matter of adjudication is symptomatic of a societies untenable position of ignorance in dealing with reality as it occurs.

6

Mastriani, it’s pretty clear that you’re approaching the topic from a totally different perspective than I am.

I’m thinking about the best interests of the person in question. It’s not always in that person’s best interests to continue living. If he rationally expects that the rest of his life will be miserable, it’s the rational thing to do to commit suicide. The reason why we usually discourage suicides is that we think this is almost never the case.

7

Suicide is a form of waste.

My ethics are related to a different species then human, and I view things such as un-sustainable, wasteful and unhealthy actions as the only sin which truly exists, as it is a form of apostacy.
Life causing death, life apostacizing from the simple and concentual meaning of life, this is sin: this is the only sin possible.

But, my ethics are relativistic.
Earth is overpopulated with humans.
If a few chose to end their physical lives, that is their right.

~

But if you think physical death is the total end of consciousness and self, death becomes a far greater issue. I think people should focus all of their technology, time and money towards the development of genetic engineering and cyborg attachments which cause relative “immortality”.

Why would I think that?

I say increase the quality of the living system, instead of simply increasing the quantity of living bodies on earth.

~

My view from a materialist point:
Total loss! Very serious! Death should be avoided and stopped.

My view from my survivalist point:
Death is a drastic shift of existence & consciousness, but physical death should still be made optional. Some people should be able to choose to live forever on earth in a material form, even if death isn’t the end of the line.

~

Most people think at suicide that they can stop all of their problems by breaking their own toys. It is a form of frustrated madness. Little do they realize that their problems still exist and cannot be aborted, as their soul survives the physical death.

During the NDE of attempted suicides, most persons found themselves in a dark and frightening realm. In purely spirit form, our state of being controls our three-dimensional-location. If we are spiritually, inwardly in bad-shape, we will find ourselves in a bad place also, due to the laws of attraction and teleportation.

Suicide doesn’t always stop the pain, depending on what form the pain is.

There is a difference between physical pain and spiritual pain.

8

Being from a more materialist and scientific background myself, I would say, “humans don’t have souls, so suicide fixes every problem. It is usually not the BEST fix, overall, but it works.”

9

I had a brother die; cause of death was deemed suicide, just a few months ago. Suicide is a subject on my family’s minds lately. I ponder life and death daily. I have considered my brother’s death an event in time that was my brothers. I did not experience my brother’s life, nor did he mine. I will miss Him. How can one person judge anyone’s pain and their choice to end their own life? Does a loved one have to view it with regrets? Does that make one a cold person, or could their view of life and death be so different as to make death neither good nor bad. What if their loved ones feel it was a selfish act? Is it? Is wanting a person to remain in a world that somehow feels wrong to them, right? If someone needs to leave this reality, who is in the place to judge?

10

Incidentally just for the record, the Bible doesn’t say suicide’s a sin, and it doesn’t say it’s not.
It simply never mentions it one way or the other…

11

im always bothered when people judge sucides. it makes the situation more sad to me because its usually judgements that cause people to kill themselves in the first place. almost like even in death they cant escape the reality that everyone is still out to prove them wrong. that always pissed me off.

i dont know if its right or wrong. i feel bad on one hand with loss and all but on the other hand i still want to respect them so its really quite a confusing jumble of emotions.

12

Most suicides are among the young and whether 14 or 40 the scale logic is the same, we get about 100 years if we behave well.

13

One particularly amusing/stupid issue is that assisting suicide is illegal, and carries a sentence similar to conspiracy to commit murder (not in all countries, obviously, hence ‘suicide tourism’), however, one can attempt suicide unsuccessfully as often as one likes and the law won’t do a damn thing.

So it’s fine for people to try to kill themselves but not for other people to help them. How selfish, how individualistic, how thoroughly idiotic…

They know no such thing. If one thinks, repeatedly, ‘I will be miserable in the future’ then one is much more likely to be miserable. Depression, anxiety, repression, neuroses - all tend towards vicious cycles. That’s about all we’ve learnt in a century of modern psychology, and we knew it before that anyway…

14

Would I be committing suicide if I knew someone was going to kill me at 2pm, and I did nothing to stop it, and told everyone else not to stop it?

15

Suicide may be one’s inablity to appreciate potential. When I have considered it, my thoughts leap to the fact that my intentions are self-serving, omitting connectivity with others who may be affected by my act. I certainly agree that, in considering what life offers, quality is better than quantity. I wouldn’t want to exist as a vegitable. But I am too curious to stop it all.

16

You’re correct Twiff, my approach was off, my apologies.

Now that I understand your perspective, it begs the question:

Why do others always assume to know what is “best” for someone else?

Do we have proof that the remainder of their life will be a process of getting better, more valid, more useful?

17

We don’t, but we should hope that subjectively - the subject in question - does. You will no doubt posit it as simple illusion but this illusion of ‘progress’, both on a personal criteria and whole-society wide span, is necessary for the functioning of this group/individual, giving it/them a point to converge upon. Even if it’s an end of the rainbow type of point, it matters not, the effect of lending coherence, even temporary, is benefit enough.

In general - Recreational Suicide: You have one life, or must act as if this is so, to end it for no other end than a personal ‘negative’ gain - a return to absolute zero - is just… Well, words fail.

18

Death through denile, like irresponsability, smoking, starvation, anything.

The direct assaults are “bad”, the irresponsabilities are all forgiven.

19

I think that’s the big question. It seems most would agree that if someone is, without question, going to be horribly excruciatingly miserable for the rest of their lives, suicide is acceptable. We all differ in our estimate of when that would the be case.

On one hand you have people saying “you can never know that the rest of your life will be miserable - it could be wonderful!”

On the other hand, you have people saying, “if they think they’re going to be miserable, who are you to say that they’re wrong?”

I think there’s definite validity to both stances. People who are truly depressed have a marked inability to understand that they may be happy tomorrow, even if this is a person who chronically is happy during the weekend and suicidal during the week. During the week he may very well not at all understand that he will be happy again during the week. I’ve observed this strange phenomenon with a few people. These people have a clear potential to be happy in general, if they can be happy over the weekend (or whatever), and so they should be discouraged from suicide, perhaps put on medication or encouraged to change their lifestyles, and see how things go. (Suicide is always an option for later!)

On the other hand, there are people who aren’t “screwy in the head” - who are rational but very unhappy. This is much more rare than a typical hysterical suicidal person, I think, but they do exist. If you can discern that a particular suicidal person is in such a state, I think there’s no good foundation for trying to dissuade them.

20

Recently started “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus kinda changing the way I look at suicide.

Many times in history groups have commited ritualistic suicide seppuku etc because of a loss of honor. Camus says these deaths are noble and fine.

Yet, those who do it simply because they desire to not push further into life are foolish because they may only live once. In that case it would be not to one’s own benefit but rather wholly the individuals loss.