Philosophy and Suicide
Presented by Annette on Friday 19/5/17
Philosophy and Suicide. 19 May 2017
Questions
- What makes a person's behaviour suicidal?
- What motivates such behaviour?
- To be or not to be? What do you think of suicide as a philosophical question?
- Has religion’s greatest contribution been its prohibition on suicide?
- Is suicide morally permissible, or even morally required in some extraordinary circumstances? Or is suicide always an immoral act?
- If you put aside religion and mental health, can suicide be a rational choice, a ‘free act’?
- Should others always intervene to prevent suicide attempts?
- Can suicide be altruistic?
- Do adults contemplating suicide have a responsibility for the impact it has on those they leave behind? In what circumstances (economic, emotional)?
- Should we ever assist an adult wishing to end their life (eg terminal illness)?
- Are acts during war that involve suicide permissible? EG recent terror attacks?
- Why do we find suicide so compelling?
- What is the meaning of the suicide note?
Read
Key reading:
Stanford Philosophy has a good summary at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/
Suicide
First published Tue May 18, 2004; substantive revision Tue Nov 20, 2012
Throughout history, suicide has evoked an astonishingly wide range of reactions—bafflement, dismissal, heroic glorification, sympathy, anger, moral or religious condemnation—but it is never uncontroversial. Suicide is now an object of multidisciplinary scientific study, with sociology, anthropology, psychology, and psychiatry each providing important insights into suicide.
Particularly promising are the significant advances being made in our scientific understanding of the neurological and genetic bases of suicidal behavior (Stoff and Mann 1997, Jamison 2000, Joiner 2010, 228–236) and the mental conditions associated with it. Nonetheless, many of the most controversial questions surrounding suicide are philosophical. For philosophers, suicide raises a host of conceptual, moral, and psychological questions. This article will examine the main currents of historical and contemporary philosophical thought surrounding these questions.
- 1. Characterizing Suicide
- 2. Highlights of Historical Thought
- 3. The Morality and Rationality of Suicide
- 3.1 Moral Permissibility
- 3.2 The Deontological Argument from the Sanctity of Life
- 3.3 Religious Arguments
- 3.4 Libertarian Views and the Right to Suicide
- 3.5 Social, Utilitarian, and Role-Based Arguments
- 3.6 Suicide as a Moral Duty?
- 3.7 Autonomy, Rationality, and Responsibility
- 3.8 Duties Toward the Suicidal
- 4. Conclusion
Hume
Hume’s two essays on Suicide
http://www.davidhume.org/texts/suis.html
Wikipedia
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"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_suicide
Suicide and religion: a controversial view
http://www.meforum.org/1003/the-religious-foundations-of-suicide-bombings
Listen
Rationally Speaking Podcast on suicide http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs108-suicide.html
Philosophy bites Simon Critchley on suicide
Watch
Recent controversies sparked by 13 reasons why.
Here is a summary of the show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqzjb07py9s
Guardian’s Zoe Williams on the show https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/apr/26/netflix-13-reasons-why-suicide
Headspace warning issued about the dangers of the series https://www.headspace.org.au/news/dangerous-content-in-13-reasons-why/
Getting help
If this material raises any issues for you
Beyondblue https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/get-immediate-support
Lifeline 13 11 14
Website: https://www.lifeline.org.au