Suicide and Potential: A Moral Debate

[pmb_phy]

I must say though, although I realize such matters are very, very difficult for the person to discuss, if he did not tell you he had problems, nor give any indication, then he really did not do everything he could to get help. Family and friends would have to have been a very good source for help and support.

Easy to say, hard to do. He may have found it impossible to do so. In cases such as his its most likely not the kind of thing where friends can help. Serious cases of depression can't be solved by talking to your friends. It mayh have helped him in some small way but I doubt it would have been significant. Nobody can say and I'm not about to sit in judgement of something where I'm completely ignorant about the actual reason. But that's me.

There are other times I see suicide as a humane decision. There are some instances when a person is so ill that the most humane thing do to is to let the person die. For example, a person who has a horrible illness and is not responding to treatment may end up in a hospice. In cases such as this it would be humane to let the person commit suicide rather than suffer in the hospice waiting for death to come.

Pete

 

[pallidin]

It must be a very difficult thing to go through one's own, or another's, terminal disorder. I can think of little more that would be more distressing.
Though I must at some point die, I can only hope that it is sudden or without a great deal of pain and suffering. Regardless of the following comments, I cannot truly say how I might act or react under similar circumstance.
What I will offer is this: I believe there is a component to life apart from our day-to-day living. Call it spiritual, call it whatever.
My point offered is that if we "call" that moment(suicide), than do we not also refuse any available help? Once remanded to death, we remand ourselves to no "possible" recovery. I am against that because I believe in a spiritual component to life, including miracles, and to commit suicide tells me that one does not believe that.
But what do I know! If you are burning alive from some strange accident and you are totally alone with a loaded gun, would you direct it to your head and pull the trigger? Damn, I hope I am never in that circumstance.

 

[Kerrie]

i see suicide for people who are depressed, but otherwise set in life, as a selfish act-it is your responsibility to take charge of your happiness...that probably sounds harsh, but it is the truth...in the instance of someone sufferering from pain or terminal illness, i think it is more justifiable...

 

[Tom McCurdy]

Sucide unless because of physical pain is stupid. People get too involved in emotions and stress. If you were to the point that you are willing to kill yourself, just say my current life is normal and do all the crazy wild stuff you would always want to do but never would because of public opinons. Go live in the forest by yourself if you want -- you ahve nothing to lose I almost see it as a huge oppurtunity to start over. Where else can u go but up/.

 

[eringj]

The conclusion others seem to be coming to here is suicide is okay if it is self-enacted euthanasia, a response to physical pain, but not as a response to emotional pain.

Why? Do we assume emotional pain to have little importance? I don't believe that is the attitude of the majority of posters - this ideal leads logically to the conclusion that rape should be punished according only to the physical injurys sustained.

When someone commits suicide, it is for one of two reasons:
1) death was not intentional; it was a cry for help
2) the suicidal decides that death would be better than life

Dismissing emotional pain as trivial or transient is therefore a mistake; the person in best place to judge considers it overwhelming, and who ever chooses such a final solution to a transient problem? Suicidals do not consider their problems transient. Please don't call these people or their decision 'stupid'. If it can be the right decision for one in physical pain, maybe it is sometimes the right decision for those in psychological pain.

As for those of you who don't consider a person's life their own property, to do with as they wish, I challenge you to justify this perspective without falling back on religious dogma or a functionalist societal view that disregards the wellbeing of human beings.

To conclude: Suicide is always an extreme choice, but not necessarily a 'stupid' one and certainly not morally 'wrong'

 

[Philocrat]

I was just wondering, If a person who has great potential, and great ability to change the world for the better decides to commit suicide, is it wrong? Isn't it his decision to make? Should he have to kill himself with the guilt of 'what ifs' on his mind, or should he be able to kill himself not caring about the potential and ability's he had?

Does he have to feel guilty about leaving his family behind and causing grief and turmoil? Isnt it fair for him to end his own pain? Should he leave a suicide note telling his family he did this for himself, selfishly? or will that just create more grief, I don't know, was just a question I had on my mind.

If you are a 'UNIVERSALIST', yes, Suicide is wrong. You will find this ruling in Kant's 'CATEGORICAL IMPARATIVES', a fixed point on which his moral philosophy rests. In Kant's universalism, suicide is wrong because, according to him, when you do commit one, you rob the rest of the society of 'VALUE'! Another point: Lutwig Wittgenstein spent his entire life contemplating suicide...but in the end (and very cleverly) he never did.

For me suicide is wrong for one fundamental reason:

In our unshakeable resolve and drive to survive, everyone counts, and since no one knows who holds the KEY to that survival, every necessary step or measure taken to preserve life must be ABSOLUTELY adhered to. In this very sense, I could very well pass as a universalist.

PROBLEM: Universalism, though originally necessary and wholly desirable, is incompatible with UTILITARIANISM. Under utilitarian code of conduct, one or a few may commit suicide to save many in a moral dilemma situation. In this very sense, you could quite rightly say or postulate that Universalism is naturally ill-equipped to deal with moral dilemmas that we all encounter in every moment of our lives. However, my own belief is that, even if this were really the case, it is ephemrally so, both in scope and in substance...for in the end universalism will prevail.

 

[Kerrie]

Why? Do we assume emotional pain to have little importance? I don't believe that is the attitude of the majority of posters - this ideal leads logically to the conclusion that rape should be punished according only to the physical injurys sustained.

When someone commits suicide, it is for one of two reasons:
1) death was not intentional; it was a cry for help
2) the suicidal decides that death would be better than life

Dismissing emotional pain as trivial or transient is therefore a mistake; the person in best place to judge considers it overwhelming, and who ever chooses such a final solution to a transient problem? Suicidals do not consider their problems transient. Please don't call these people or their decision 'stupid'. If it can be the right decision for one in physical pain, maybe it is sometimes the right decision for those in psychological pain.

As for those of you who don't consider a person's life their own property, to do with as they wish, I challenge you to justify this perspective without falling back on religious dogma or a functionalist societal view that disregards the wellbeing of human beings.

To conclude: Suicide is always an extreme choice, but not necessarily a 'stupid' one and certainly not morally 'wrong'

thank you for a fresh and more positive perspective...it made me rethink my stand on it...i still believe we are ultimately responsible for our emotional direction in life, but i have to agree after reading your words that suicide is an extreme call for help, not a stupid choice. your compassion for those suffering is to be commended...

 

[Dagenais]

IMHO, except in the case of terminal illness and pain, suicide is a sad form of surrender. "I have so much to offer, but the world won't let me show it. So, i will quit and that will teach you." A grotesque expression of anger; turned inward.

Suicide isn't "surrendering" or taking the easy way out. I would hardly call killing yourself easy. In fact, in my opinion, it takes a lot of courage to commit suicide. Whether it be shooting yourself or jumping to your death.

I've seen someone attempt to commit suicide. He jumped off a pretty high cliff onto railroad tracks. I was sitting in my car enjoying the beautiful view, next to some other people in their cars when this man comes up...and just jumps. He was still alive though, when the ambulance got there.

If these people have the guts to jump to their death or to shoot themselves, they must have the courage to continue life.

 

[mikeee]

Isn't it a natural instinct for us to live? I think that suicide in most cases wrong and is part of some mental problem (other then depression) excluding people suffering of disease and such that are in never ending agony and are destined to die anyways.