In ethics and other branches of philosophy, suicide poses difficult questions, answered differently by various philosophers. The French essayist, novelist, and playwright Albert Camus (1913–1960) began his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus with the famous line "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide." (French: Il n'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux : c'est le suicide.). Philosophical stances on suicide can be divided into two broad groups. Religious philosophy commonly, although not universally, condemns suicide, while nonreligious stances tend towards toleration, with some seeing it as laudatory, depending on circumstance. Utilitarianism offers perhaps a confusing stance. For example, using Jeremy Bentham's hedonistic calculus, it may be concluded that although suicide offers utility by ending personal suffering, the grief it causes others may outweigh its utility. The calculation cannot be determined at a philosophical level.
Arguments against suicide Common philosophical opinion of suicide since modernization reflected a spread in cultural beliefs of western societies that suicide is immoral and unethical. One popular argument is that many of the reasons for committing suicide—such as depression, emotional pain, or economic hardship—are transitory and can be ameliorated by therapy and through making changes to some aspects of one's life. A common adage in the discourse surrounding suicide prevention sums up this view: "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." However, the argument against this is that while emotional pain may seem transitory to most people, in other cases it may be extremely difficult or even impossible to resolve, even through counseling or lifestyle change, depending upon the severity of the affliction and the person's ability to cope with their pain. Examples of this are incurable disease or lifelong mental illness.
Absurdism Camus saw the goal of absurdism in establishing whether suicide is a necessary response to a world which appears to be mute both on the question of God's existence (and thus what such an existence might answer) and for our search for meaning and purpose in the world. For Camus, suicide was the rejection of freedom. He thought that fleeing from the absurdity of reality into illusions, religion, or death is not the way out. Instead of fleeing the absurd meaninglessness of life, we should embrace life passionately. Existentialist Sartre describes the position of Meursault, the protagonist of Camus' The Stranger who is condemned to death, in the following way:
The absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions ... and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention, and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the "divine irresponsibility" of the condemned man.
Christian-inspired philosophy
Christian theology almost universally condemns suicide as being a crime against God. G. K. Chesterton calls suicide "the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence". He argues that a person who kills themself, as far as he is concerned, destroys the entire world (apparently exactly repeating Maimonides' view).
Liberalism John Stuart Mill argued, in his influential essay "On Liberty," that since the sine qua non of liberty is the power of the individual to make choices, any choice that one might make that would deprive one of the ability to make further choices should be prevented. Thus, for Mill, selling oneself into slavery should be prevented in order to avoid precluding the ability to make further choices. Concerning these matters, Mill writes in "On Liberty":
Not only persons are not held to engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an engagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most other civilized countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. But by selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he forgoes any future use of it, beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a position which has no longer the presumption in its favour, that would be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom. It could be argued that suicide prevents further choices in the same way slavery does. However, it can also be argued that there are significant differences in not having any further involvement in decisions about one’s life and not having any further life to make decisions about. Suicide essentially removes the condition of being alive, not the condition of making choices about one’s life. Mill believes the individual to be the best guardian of their own interests. He uses the example of a man about to cross a broken bridge: we can forcibly stop that person and warn him of the danger, but ultimately should not prevent him from crossing the bridge—for only he knows the worth of his life balanced against the danger of crossing the bridge. Too much should not be read into "disposing of his own lot in life" in the passage, as this is not necessarily talking about anything other than slavery. Indeed, it would be odd if Mill had intended it to be about suicide but not explored the issue fully.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
