For the nonbeliever in a naturalistic terms, what makes suicide "always wrong" (i.e. categorically immoral without exception)? — 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?

I never claimed nor implied that I "believe in the supernatural". Your OP references it ("God"). Reread what I wrote. Tell me why, without reference to "supernatural" anything, "suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances."

I never claimed nor implied that I "believe in the supernatural". Your OP references it ("God"). Reread what I wrote. Tell me why, without reference to "supernatural" anything, "suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances." — 180 Proof

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 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? — I love Chom-choms

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:

I made God the one telling you because I just thought that people would roll with it — I love Chom-choms

No problem with that. Anyway, this is a hypothesis, something imaginary ...

I said earlier that a suicide is right only if your situation is objectively wrong. — 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.

A person commits suicide because he/she believes that his life is so bad — 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.

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. — 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.

:up:

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. — I love Chom-choms

So people who quit tournaments are morally wrong now?

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? — TheMadFool

Well, if that was the case, then why would anyone commit suicide in such circumstances?

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. — 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.

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? — 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.

I never claimed nor implied that I "believe in the supernatural". Your OP references it ("God"). Reread what I wrote. Tell me why, without reference to "supernatural" anything, "suicide is wrong, no matter the circumstances." — 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.

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?
— TheMadFool

Well, if that was the case, then why would anyone commit suicide in such circumstances? — I love Chom-choms

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.

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?
— TheMadFool

Yes, that is too much but by that 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. — 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.

I said earlier that a suicide is right only if your situation is objectively wrong.
— 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. — Alkis Piskas

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".

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. — Alkis Piskas

I think we can say that they are suffering emotional pain, which still is pain. So my argument should hold.

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. — 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.

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. — TheMadFool

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.

I have nothing more to say.

I think we can say that they are suffering emotional pain, — I love Chom-choms

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.

The reasoning behind seppuku is that it is better to die than to live is shame — 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.

I get it. Your skydaddy's "Plan" trumps human integrity (e.g. Job contra his wife, Kierkegaard's teleological suspension, theodicy, etc). :roll:

There is no rule book to life. — Tom Storm

There is (arguably) no rule book anywhere, except for those who wish to play. And some games you cannot resign without betraying at least some part of yourself. although the possibility of that betrayal be just be a part of life. That makes such an ending a tragedy.

It becomes a question of second-guessing the suicide. Unless seeking some lesson to be learned, I don't see much point in that

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. — TheMadFool

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.

Despite my having fairly strong feelings about it, I won't comment much about this matter, save to indicate that no person has authority over an individual's life but the individual himself, and no one can make evaluations regarding someone's subjective experiences and set of values, save the individual himself. Any attempt to do so must involve the imposition of one person's subjective values upon another person's evaluation of his subjective life experience. The best thing one can do when confronted with the prospect of suicide, is to help the person considering ending his life, to percieve and understand the full range of perspectives and possibilities pertaining to his or her life, and to take any and all steps to display the value that you place in their existence. The ultimate right to choose life or death for themselves, though, is theirs alone.

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. — 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.

have their origin in Jewish foundational ethics, wherein the divine command "thou shall not kill" has absolute force. — Michael Zwingli

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

There were times the Bible specifically commanded the killing of people or permitted the killing of people (war, crimes, self-defense, etc.). — Ennui Elucidator

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 God told you to commit suicide?

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”?

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.
— “Deuteronomy 7:1”

Deut. 7:1

16 Thou shalt not murder.
— “Deuteronomy 5:16”

Deut. 5:16

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. — Michael Zwingli

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.

the divine command "thou shall not kill" has absolute force. — Michael Zwingli

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’m not sure what you mean by “later”. Less than 50 “lines"? — Ennui Elucidator

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.

Thou shalt not murder. — “Deuteronomy 5:16”

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).

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). — Ennui Elucidator

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.

From what I've seen out there - and its real out there, its not easy out there - suicide isn't a philosophical or moral problem. I know, I know: Camus and sisyphus and all that. Maybe it's better to say that thinking of it in moral or philosophical terms is confusing. People who think of it in those terms don't often tend to commit suicide. Or if they do, they were already going to and they playact philosophizing about it as a way to feel like they have intellectual control over a process that is beyond that. Or like to ennoble it.

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.

Food for thought:

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.