It's not that suicidal people aren't aware of the consequences, it's just that the need to escape their misery overpowers their ability to think rationally. It's not immoral, it's temporary insanity. Think of how powerful the force must be in order to override our natural instinct to survive.

I don't know that we always have a survival drive, both Buddha and Freud talked about a death drive. We're social animals, and I think that social rejection can enact a will to die.

Ostracism/ abuse may themselves be murderous.

And he left six kids behind with this act. It's a tragedy for them more than anything else.

@Wosret

Yes, this death drive you speak of equates to the powerful force that overrides our instinct to survive. It ebbs and flows, and builds in strength until a tipping point is reached, at which time there is no going back, unless you are fortunate enough to fail in your attempt at suicide.

It's a sad thing to think of the misery a person endures in reaching that tipping point. And sadder still to imagine how strong the desire for death must be to make it seem like suicide is the only viable option, knowing how much suffering it will bring to others.

Do you think that the suicides are particularly immoral and selfish because of how influential these people are? I do. I think that killing themselves was highly reckless, and could inspire a number of troubled people to take similar action... — Wosret

No, I think that it's particularly immoral to make that judgement of them, and highly reckless to take that approach to this subject. You don't know enough about what they were going through, and weighing what they did against the potential of others doing likewise seems unfair and distasteful.

Not to mention that hanging is an awful way to go... they used to drop you from a few feet, and even tie sand bags to you if you were a skinny guy like him to break the neck. Not to be morbid but without that it could have taken quite a while to go...

Kind of individualism vs collectivism. Which wins? I'm sympathetic to the individualist view which I live, but in the past couple of years I've felt a lot of pressure from the other side.

Very small point: pictures are hung; people are hanged.

Very small point: pictures are hung; people are hanged. — tim wood

But why? When was this differentiation made? Here's a Google Ngram showing the difference of use between 1800 and the present. Why the decline in people hanging things--the wash, the blame, cloaks in cloakrooms...

The graph doesn't show the amount of people using either word in specified context though.

Even though the formalization of language is fairly new, and if you read anyone from more than like a hundred and fifty, to two hundred years ago, you'd see that they can often spell the same word multiple different ways with no apparent significance, and contract words in all kinds of funny ways, and are just basically creative in their writing -- I'm still willing to yield to professional opinion. I think that being understood is more important, but I won't make a deal, or opt a big defense about it, saying that I'm not wrong.

I definitely don't like to be nit-picked, or told I'm wrong about anything ever, I also like to improve. I'll try to remember to say it right in the future.

Do you think that the suicides are particularly immoral and selfish because of how influential these people are? I do. I think that killing themselves was highly reckless, and could inspire a number of troubled people to take similar action... — Wosret

I think there is a fine line to walk here. The act is arguably immoral and selfish, but in nearly all cases, the act would be the result of depression or other mental health issues, which is a mitigating factor. It's hard to hold someone responsible when they are acting on an impulse to ease their own pain. It is a situation where we recognize that people aren't "in their right mind".

I think that it's far more useful to own the responsibility. Denying it in them to appease feelings, or self-perception, blame, or for a sense of individualism spreads to us and everyone else.

Nations with capital punishment have the highest murder rates, and nations with euthanasia have the highest suicide rates. It isn't meanness, or something that makes me both remind people of the wide reaching effects and influence of their actions, or the gruesomeness, and unreliability of the means -- it's concern for their welfare.

We don't have full control over our actions, no (whatever that would even mean), but our perceptions, widespread perceptions, and the perceptions of our peers and those we look up to do matter a great deal.

What the graph shows is the frequency of appearance in the corpus of words extracted from all the books Google has scanned. It does not, by and large, reflect spoken language, or privately communicated language -- letters, journals, diaries, etc.

So, no - this graph (and google n-gram) do not show the number of individual people who used the words or in what context. One would have to go to the OED for some of that. What it shows is the corpus of authors who got books published. There isn't any way of capturing past language usage by all the people, except by sampling. There are, for instance, transcripts of court proceedings (including what witnesses said); later on, there were sound recordings of people speaking, and a few transcripts have been made of that. Then television, now youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. But none of that is represented in Google N-gram.

btw, this kind of research was begun by linguists in the 1960s and on -- and maybe earlier. The University of Goteborg in Sweden published a book of the English language corpus, back in the 1980s. It's just a very long list of words a frequency figure after it, arranged in order - most frequent to least frequent. It could have been done earlier, of course, but one really needs a computer and a big database.

We regularly consider mental illness or psychological duress to be mitigating factors in criminal law, and I think that is based on sound reasoning. Why would this be different?

I don't understand your objection. Do you disagree that the actions of influential people have wide-reaching consequences for those that look up to them? That one shouldn't, or simply can't think of that when they've entered into suicidal ideations?

It also isn't obvious to me that everyone that wants to kill themselves or someone else has gone "insane", or what "mental illness" even is besides a disassociation technique to feel insusceptible to the same impulses.

This all feels like a tangent though. My question was whether one thing could be said to cause the other. The murkiness of praise and blame seems too easy to get lost in.

↪Reformed Nihilist

I don't understand your objection. Do you disagree that the actions of influential people have wide-reaching consequences for those that look up to them? That one shouldn't, or simply can't think of that when they've entered into suicidal ideations?

You seem to forget that Cornell, Cobain, and Bennington were far beyond a place where they could worry about what influence their actions have. None of us have to bear that burden as we live our lives; so, it's selfish and unrealistic to think those at the darkest, most helpless places in their lives should think how their actions could affect others when they can't even help themselves.

It also isn't obvious to me that everyone that wants to kill themselves or someone else has gone "insane", or what "mental illness" even is besides a disassociation technique to feel insusceptible to the same impulses.

And you are woefully uneducated in both neurology and the science of mental illnesses. Clinical depression and Bi-polar disorder are significantly caused by the brain's inability to produce sufficient serotonin, the chemical greatly responsible for rises in mood, libido, and energy. So, those suffering with those illnesses can have great difficulties feeling motivated to work or function, and sometimes even live, if they are not treated.

So, before you judge these people whose lives were so low they preferred death to it, educate yourself on what might have been the cause of their suffering.

My question was whether one thing could be said to cause the other. The murkiness of praise and blame seems too easy to get lost in. — Wosret

Actually the question I was responding to is "Do you think that the suicides are particularly immoral and selfish because of how influential these people are?". The question was about moral culpability of suicide. If you are asking if the potential societal harm is greater, then I would strongly suspect so. The Werther Effect is well established.

Okay moral responsibility as distinct from causal responsibility is a lot more difficult to establish, and reach consensus on, rather than argue about it, I'll just take and appreciate your view of it. I think that it is significant enough to highlight the wide reaching consequences, than like to moralize the guy over it. I in no way think that he was wicked or meant harm, but I do think it important to point out just what kind of responsibility that level of influence entails.

I wasn't aware of a well established principle that supports me. You're good at bringing those to my attention.

I wasn't aware of a well established principle that supports me. You're good at bringing those to my attention. — Wosret

Glad to be of service. :D

Who were those two people? I haven't heard of them, and I don't know why they killed themseves. ...what their circumstances were.

No, suicide isn't immoral if, in the view of the person in question, it's called-for by an illness, disease or injury that the person in question regards as spoiling their quality-of-life.

But, then, I don't call it "suicide" in general. I call it justified, needed, auto-euthanasia.

I advocate medically-assisted euthanasia for anyone who wants it due to a disease, illness, or injury that the person in question regards as unacceptably lowering their quality-of-life.

Familly-members, friends, and loved-ones need to recognize that person's right to make hir (his/her) own choices regarding life-choices, and quality-of-life.

Suicide without a good reason, such as I described, is a big mistake.

But teen-suicide--while it's a mistake too, and while it should be strongly advised-against, and while its potential causes addressed and corrected--probably doesn't have the adverse-consequences of suicide as an (uninjured, un-diseased) adult. ...because it happens at a time when the person is overwhelmed by changing conditions and is easily lost, and less responsible for the mistake.

Michael Ossipoff