When is suicide justified?

Huckleberry

Those examples aren't exactly self inflicted. There is another person involved with the intent to kill and there is also someone to protect. Those people are not responsible for their own deaths. They were killed by others while attempting to protect something they perceived as more valuable than their own life.

Surrealist

Huckleberry, it all depends on how you define suicide. If you want to include a phrase in your definition of suicide that excludes acts of heroism, then I suppose you are right. If you don't do this, then you are wrong.

So you see, this whole arguement circles around a human-constructed definition.

Huckleberry

Are there any kinds of definitions that aren't human-constructed?

The person's own death isn't the intention in those cases. The intention in those cases is to benefit others with an act that requires self-sacrafice. The reason for their death is to benefit others, not to end their own life. I think the intention of death is implicit in the definition of suicide.

This reminds me of something. This incident happened about a week ago. It is being called Suicide by Cop. I would call this suicide, as the person's own death seems to be the motivation for the act.

[The ends justify the means in the case of suicide. It's not 'how' they die, but 'why'.]

NeoDevin

Is it ok to commit suicide out of curiosity? Simply to see what it's like to be dead?

I've often wondered what it will be like, but decided that since it will come anyways, there's no need to rush it.

alexsok

Curiosity of what? Think back to the time before you were born and there you have your curiosity satisfied - that is not a place I would want to visit again, particularly since being dead is tantamount to the entire universe never existing (for you anyway, but that's the same thing). RIchard Dawkins had 3 good quotes on this subject:

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

"If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that naïve and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions?"

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?"

I rest my case.

raolduke

Have you've been to a nursing home and tried to have a conversation with one of the residents? It'd be much nicer not to be around to see your self withering like shells of people I've seen.

Suicide is always justified because you are taking your own life, your applying your own meaning to it.. How many here have ever contemplated that?

Life is a strange form of suicide anyways.. You must be living a very dull life if you don't agree..

"Bravery and stupidity go hand in hand, that must mean I'm the bravest man."

Rade

Jesus the god committed suicide [eg. he refused the taking of his life by others when he could have prevented it]. If the act OK for a god who are humans to condemn it ? All humans [and gods] justify to themselves that the act is OK--such is the price of free-will.

Surrealist

In general, why do people commit suicide? I believe it is because they have lost hope. I'm talking about the hope that life will get better in the future. Hope is the only reason we persist.

Let's face the fact people... if you have no hope, and there is no possibility that hope will be restored, then there is no point in living.

puni12

suicide is never justified..
whatever pain a person is facing.., there's always light at the end of the tunnel..
and one more thing.. life is a gift..
suicdie is just like receiving a birthday gift then throwing it away just because u get bored with it or because of what the thing has done to you..
but the thing has never done anything to you.. it only dpends on how we think about it.
its the same with life..
life has never done anything to you. your life depends on how you look at it and how you react to its situations.

life is short..
why waste it?

summerale

If just getting through the day is torture, 400 painful memories and thoughts a day, then perhaps suicide is a rational option. Only the individual can make the decision. For everyone to say, Oh don't do it, don't do it, could be grossly unfair to the individual. Perhaps he / she IS in such a horribly depressed state that suicide is the humane way to end the terrible, unending pain. Terrible things happen to people: failure in jobs, divorce after 30 years of marriage, losing one's house and money, incessant debt collectors ringing at all hours of the day, being evicted from one's apartment, becoming homeless, being impoverished, growing old and unemployable. An American military person could read "Killing Hope" and discover the country he risked his life for was actually a vampire state that invaded, assassinated, murdered, and was despised by 80% of the planet. There are worse things than suicide. Drug companies should be allowed to manufacture a painless suicide pill to make suicide easier and less traumatic. THAT would be the humane thing to do.

baywax

As PUNI12 has pointed out "life is short" as it is... we all die at some point... what's the rush?

For example: use life to solve these challenges, such as the 400 "painful memories" per day. Isn't it within a person's power to generate 4000 new, hopeful and envigorating thoughts per day... or even just at lunch? Depression is our body's way of saying "you think too much" or "you need more sunshine" or "try 4000 IU of Vitamin "D". Most of these "problems" or challenges are only a few steps away from solvable...... whereas.... solving these challanges with death is final... and one has no way to appreciate the solution since one is dead. There is no sense of accomplishment or relief when your dead. In fact you may be carrying these "challenges" with you to your death and dealing with them there. That's why its always a good thing to clear things up while you're alive... just in case its this kind of thing (challenges) that you are able to "take with you".

easyrider

Suicide is one helluva step to take. Some people I could understand killing themselves, where no life at all is actually better. After you kill yourself though, theres no turning back, no pain, no pleasure, no love and no hate. Cease of all brain activity, its up to them though.

PeteKL

Whether or not suicide can be justified depends on the circumstances of the deceased such as how his or her death affects relatives(grieving is such suffering) and whether the victim had a better choice or not. The suicidal person would not consider death an option if death denies him or her the ability to think, see, smell, taste, hear and touch unless life is unbearably painful. The insane person might not even care.

Rasmia

i love this topic along with all the comments

The Phoenix

I would assert that the very fact that any living organism would take action to end its own life justifies why the action should be taken. Forcing such an organism to survive and possibly procreate is detrimental to the species in question and thus such mal-combinations of genes should be eradicated from the gene-pool. The very fact that such a person would end his or her own life would then prove that the person was obviously not suited to survive (as they killed themselves) therefore there is no Darwinian reason to prevent such an occurance.

I therefore assert that the ends most certainly justify the means, and that anyone who would wish to end his or her own life should be allowed - whether that be individually or assisted.

baywax

Even in the case of a suicide bomber?

WaveJumper

Fallacy. That does not constitute suicide/death. That's heading for a party with 11 virgins.