Philosophers and Suicide

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Is suicide an action generally committed by the insane (or mentally hindered), or by the sane, just not at the same standpoint as the intellect of the social norm.

To answer this you need to look epidemiologically at those who commit suicide. And you're going to find an exceptionally strong correlation with mental illness, particularly affective disorders (i.e. mood disorders like depression, bipolar, and anxiety) and to a lesser degree thought disorders (like schizophrenia).

A minority of people kill themselves impulsively, like a murder-suicide or like a jeez-I'm-broke-because-the-stock-market-crashed. There is a minority who kill themselves because they have overwhelming pain or disability from an illness.

Suicidality is a psychiatric / psychological phenomenon unto itself, but it is a feature of many other conditions.

I can tell you though that you'd be hard pressed to find someone who commits suicide solely because of a rational idea. It may be a rationalization for some overwhelming emotion, but I doubt you'd find someone who calmly comes to that decision in the absence of emotional input.

[Holiday20310401]

I agree, suicide itself seems an immoral action and thus logic can't be the majority input to an action, it would have to be an overwhelming emotion; but rationalization could lead to those emotions, thus causing the rationale to be the original, indirect cause of suicide right?

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

I agree, suicide itself seems an immoral action

Well, that adds a different element to the discussion. To talk about who commits suicide is a conversation devoid of moral considerations. Since most people who commit suicide have some sort of mental illness, their unifying trait is NOT a predisposition to "immoral" actions, but rather extreme (i.e. terminal) impairment in their ability to cope with life and emotion. Remember that depression has a mortality rate, just as heart attacks and pneumonia have mortality rates. And one of the causes of death from depression is suicide.

Whether suicide is a morally positive, negative, or neutral act depends on your moral vantage point, right? I mean if you're a samurai warrior and you've been shamed and disgraced, then suicide is a morally positive act. If you're a devout Christian, then suicide would be regarded as a morally negative act (a mortal sin, in fact). If you're a consequentialist, then suicide is positive or negative depending on the likely results of your actions, not on the act itself.

Furthermore, an immoral act has to be considered immoral in light of who has been offended by that moral transgression. If we are the stewards of our own bodies, then is it a moral offense against one's self to commit suicide if that is one's choice?

it would have to be an overwhelming emotion; but rationalization could lead to those emotions, thus causing the rationale to be the original, indirect cause of suicide right?

I don't think so -- I think rationalizations are smokescreens that hide what is really going on underneath. We are fundamentally not rational beings -- but we think of ourselves rationally and we apply rationalizations to all sorts of irrational impulses within us. I don't think the rationalization can lead one to suicide, it's the underlying emotions.

[midas77]

I completely agree with aedes, that mentally impaired individuals commiting suicide is beyond the ambt of morality. Moral action requires a high degree of ethical responsibility on the part of the actor.

[Holiday20310401]

Animals do not commit suicide.

[BlueChicken]

1626 - Francis Bacon (Died from a cold while stuffing snow in chickens. I am calling this one indirect, but still a suicide.)

1943 - Simone Weil (Starved herself to death.)

1978 - Kurt Godel (Starved himself to death, for fear his food might be poisoned.)

1980 - Roland Barthes (Drunk from a party wandered into a street and was hit by a laundry truck. I have my suspicions.)

1995 - Gilles Deleuze (Autodefenestrated (i.e. threw himself from a window) from his apartment.)

This is why they don't let chickens have knives.