Perhaps, but I’ve just decided for you that it’s wrong and evil because sometimes people do get hurt.
That’s because you’re entirely unable to follow my argument (or deciding not to). You on the other hand come across like a young child that doesn’t understand why the world doesn’t conform to your every wish.
Yes, I’m aware that you have decided that I am young and stupid, apparently based on just a few posts. I can’t help you with your perception problem.
Your rights do not extend to imposing on the rights of others, or shirking your responsibilities towards others. You are not the hypothetical unconnected hermit, you are connected to others. Your death will (presumably) harm those others, and to deliberately set out to cause that harm is wrong. And that’s what suicide involves - your death causing harm to others, and you are responsible for that death and that harm.
Now, as this Friday is the first year anniversary of my mother’s death (which event was posted on this forum, if you have any doubt as to the veracity of my statement) I am taking a break from discussing death as I really don’t need that right now. If you’re still interested I might be back to this thread on Monday.
And no, I don’t care if you approve or not - I’m doing this for my good, not yours. 
I never said anything that suggests I think you’re young - only that you seem to think like a young child.
Sorry, I can’t allow that. As we get to decide what’s right for other people, I’ll go ahead and insist that you do as I say. So I’m going to insist you attempt logic on your next post.
And yet you persist.
You are small-minded, arrogant, self-righteous, sanctimonious, selfish and self-centred… and incredibly naive. No perception problem here.
And yet you have the right to tell us what our rights are? Is that not imposing your right on us? How does that work?
All of your blithering on about how harmful suicide is to people is a direct result of society’s attitude (solidified by people like you) towards suicide, and in refusing to allow it as an acceptable option. Let me posit this:
suicide institutions where anyone who wishes to die may go and sign in. They will sign away their life and be introduced to a quick, painless and non-messy non-traumatic death. Death by incinerating laser perhaps. Where is all the harm now?
Before going to the suicide institution people can say goodbye to whoever wants to hear it, and people can have their objections heard. Closure could be had.
In sticking with your narrow view of suicide you are likely to only cause yourself hurt and sadness in the end.
Clearly. Your own good and your own fears and insecurities are all that this is about. You don’t care about the suffering suicidal people go through, or the agony of their decision. You just want to sit around feeling sorry for yourself and playing victim. You don’t want to consider their feelings as being acceptable because then you’d have to consider your own in the same light.
It doesn’t make sense to try and force people to live when they don’t want to from a social aspect. Think of the medical staff time wasted trying to resuscitate failed suicides, people who don’t want to live. Wasting medication, wasting resources that could go towards people who do want to live, and all just to effectively torture the suicidal. That is what you want, is to torture the suffering. You are a cruel and selfish person with the empathy of a virus.
I don’t know why I’m even bothering attempting to rationalize with you.
With regards to this thread and the people interested in the matter; this question of fate seems a guise of nature vs nurture. Are some people born possibly lacking a will to live, or even with a desire to die? Martyrs certainly have their place in our evolutionary history, however in western civilization there is no longer that outlet. There may be genes that prescribe fearsome leadership qualities, not only fearsome but fearless regarding death because at a time it may have been useful for one guy in the clan to be that fearless leader who would happily go and lead his men into battle and a certain death in order to save his people.
If one possesed those genes now and was stuck in a deskjob in an office with nothing to look forward to but home-time, it’s not difficult to imagine the mind finding another means of satisfying its predisposition.
Then there is also the matter of what is termed clinical depression and its possible genetic roots. While clinical depression may not cause 100% suicide rates in those it afflicts, for an unfortunate few whose personality traits and life situation are the right (well, wrong) mix, suicide may be a fate they can only delay despite their best attempts.
I think there is also a growing problem with technology in our society depriving people of purpose (I think it was one of the Unabomber manifesto’s more salient points), and for some a life without purpose is simply not worth living. So again, a particular personality type stuck in a particular life situation may lead nowhere but to self death.
So in short, yes, I think some people do unfortunately have a propensity from birth to kill themselves eventually.
sorry! Didn’t mean to sound callous about different aged people! I would certainly try to get treatment for my elderly parents if I thought they were depressed.
When I wrote that (that I could see a case for not interfering with the suicide plans of the elderly) I was thinking of a “This American Life” story I heard (episode #342, “How to Rest in Peace”) about a woman who had been planning her own suicide for years.
After watching her mother’s decline, she decided that 79 was a perfectly respectable age to get to. From listening to the story, told by her son who assisted her to some extent (not to any extent where he could be held criminally responsible), it did not sound like she was depressed or in pain, just that that was how she wanted it to be.
It was one of the few cases of suicide that sounded not motivated by depression to me and I could see a argument for not interfering in her plans (though I doubt I would participate to the degree her son did)
I think some people can be predisposed, or pushed by a certain set of circumstances, but I don’t believe they are fated (as in an inescapable destiny).
I think the op was pretty much answered with this post. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that fate doesn’t exist, and mostly those who try are arguing against a misunderstanding of the word. Fate as I understand it is the unfolding of events preordained from some unknown past according to the laws of nature. Nobody can fight it, any more than a domino can.
Why do you think that anyone who ends up committing suicide wasn’t living out his inescapable destiny? If you were to look through every moment of his life and all the innumerable factors that eventually culminated in his suicide, logically there can’t be any alternative. Even if he based the decision on a coin toss that coin toss is subject to the laws of physics and causality. Or please explain to me otherwise.
Along with others, I question what’s meant by “fate”. I believe that you can’t really blame anyone for anything they’ve done, because I think that everything ‘big and microscopically small’ in our world determine our actions. Environment, other people, our biology and all things we live with, and in, (but couldn’t possibly keep track of) are all variables that add up to where we are at this point. I would say determinism can account for all our actions… you couldn’t rewind life like a video tape and expect there to be a different outcome unless a variable has changed. I also know a family who’s had suicide in their history, and has carried on to the present day.
I don’t see suicide the same way most others do. If I didn’t have a mother or father or brother, I would do what my grandmother did; let the car run in an enclosed place, run a hose from an exhaust pipe into my car window and wait. Some would say I’m lucky I have family. I wouldn’t hurt myself so long as at least one of those people were to live longer than me. If my brother were to die, I would wait out my parents and do it as soon as I could. I day dream about killing myself on a daily basis, but meds have helped.
Right now it’s my job to try to make my life bearable, and one day, hopefully happy. Sometimes I wish my family would understand that I would rather die than suffer another day. And when I hear someone has a terminal illness, I wish I could take it on for that person, who’s not ready to die, (though I don’t want to suffer any pain).
There were two times in my life where I remember not wanting to die. They both lasted for about six months. But even as a kid, I just wish I had never been born at all. It’s silly, but abortion’s always been one topic I struggle with most, and what might tip the scale is the fact I wish I was. Not that my parents thought of that option, but I know I wasn’t planed. I don’t know how I was able to even reach the egg, I’m so unmotivated. I was an unhappy, “happy surprise”.
Medication helps. Just because I believe life is determined, that doesn’t mean I can’t work on making mine better. So that’s where I am now. Because of my past, my biology, and my influences, I want to be a happier person. It’s not to say; “why do anything if you haven’t a choice”, you do, (sort of), but you have to want it, and you don’t just ‘WANT’ things without any feedback from your world and within.
Annie-Xmas, I’m sorry if you lost anyone close to you.
I think a lot of people have known someone who’s at least attempted suicide. That’s why I wouldn’t do it… I couldn’t do that to my immediate family. It’s not a victimless action.
You mean it would not be a victimless action in your case?
I mean many with terrrible conditions are suffering so plainly that anyone that genuinely cares for them would agree it’s the right decision, even if it makes them sad.
And then there are the “silent majority” of suiciders that have few social ties – depression tends to cause isolation behaviour after all.
And in any case, everyone dies. People are going to grieve you someday. Why can’t someday be now, so at least one person suffers less (the suicider)?
I’m not trying to promote suicide as “a good idea”; I just think that many of the arguments for why suicide is necessarily selfish, cowardly etc don’t work.
Disclaimer: To anyone reading this that is considering suicide, I would advise you to get help. Counselling, and as I mentioned previously, depression can be caused by physical disorders of the brain, and can be treated. Finally at least give yourself time to think about it. You’re not going to be at your most rational immediately after being dumped or whatever.
Yes, in mine case, and people like me. My grandmother certainly should have thought of her family when she did what she did, but she was older, so it’s obviously much different. Then there are those who are Just suffering constantly, (much more than me).
Where do you draw the line though?
Not an easy question at all.
I think one key factor is how long someone has had to think it over.
But even after you filter out those that wish to kill themselves on impulse, it’s still very tough.
It seems pretty arbitrary for instance to allow someone in chronic pain from an incurable condition to die, but force someone who is in chronic mental pain, in a way that therapy doesn’t seem to help, to live.
MyFootsZZZ, I’m sorry to hear that there was a suicide in your family.
And btw my last post wasn’t meant as a rant against you, what you said just started me off on a train of thought.
I know I made it sound as if that’s how my grandmother had passed. But she was found, (by sheer luck), by my cousin and his boyfriend. She was passed out and taken to the hospital.
She lived about two years longer, and died naturally. It’s sad, no one took noticed how extremely alone and useless she felt until she tried to kill herself. This is a woman who could barely walk, so the steps she took to kill herself, along with the time she tried to do so made it apparent that this wasn’t a scare tactic that MIGHT kill her. She was really trying to die. Thankfully she moved out of my aunts house and into a nice nursing home, (which she had asked for and wanted for some time), where she played cards with new friends and was cared for around the clock. I hope she died happy. She regretted the attempt afterwards. But she had plenty of time to plan for it.
Her maiden name was Darrow. I’m related to Clarence Darrow, the attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial. She had a lot of passion herself, and I was quite proud to be her grandson.
I more or less agree with this; however, I’m not really sure what it means. That is, if someone chose to commit suicde, it says something about the way that they lived, doesn’t it? Thankfully, I’ve never been remotely close to anyone who has committed suicide, but this pretty much goes for anyone’s death. It’s just harder to do when a death is tragic or sudden. Moreso, I’d imagine with suicide, that it’s harder to not be wondering why they did it and what we could have done to have prevented it, but ultimately, we’ll all be better served if we remember them at their best, not at their weakest.
To suggest that we don’t have the right to commit suicide is to suggest that someone else has a greater claim to our lives than we do. Considering that life is effectively the most important and fundamental right, to put limits on that freedom is to constrain all other freedoms as well.
That said, to do so is usually a terrible and extremely selfish decision, because it doesn’t take into account how it affects other people or that, except for things like terminal illness, they’ll usually get better given time and/or help. As such, by all means we have moral obligation to try to help people in those moments of despair and give them help, but as selfish as it is for someone to kill themselves without regard for their loved ones, it’s even more selfish to deny the rights of someone else just to save ourselves some grief.
I’d agree with this statement if fated is taken as a high degree of predisposition. In fact, I can even agree that in some circumstances it is all but unavoidable when some combination of gentic and environment factors makes that predisposition very high. However, to say that it is literally unavoidable, makes no sense except from a whole deterministic universe sort of perspective. However, the whole deterministic universe and lack of freewill utterly dehumanizes the sorts of emotions, thoughts, and situations that go into a decision to attempt suicide.
So, if that author argues the latter, it seems more to me like a way of assuaging the guild and second thoughts. There may or may not have been something that the author could have done, but it certainly is a lot easier to deal with a situation when you’re a victim (by which I mean, helpless to change the outcome) than when you realize your actions led to that situation. I seriously doubt that there’s any reputable study that could tie suicide 100% to genetic factors, as I think environment is a huge factor, and so upbringing probably is at least part of that.
If I’m reading you right, I respectfully disagree.
What I interpret from what you’re saying is that we have we aren’t biological machines and part of what makes us human is that we have the ability to have control over our choices in life. I’m not sure that’s what you meant, but that’s how I read it.
My question to you, (if this is the case), what leads to the choices we make? Perhaps you want kill yourself one day, and the next day you wish to live, sure. But there’s a reason you have a different mind set on each of these days, (both internally and eternally). The scope of all these things that lead us to our actions is staggering, that’s why we can only guess what the future holds. Do you not think that everything, (even our emotions as lonely as it sounds), can be determined by cause and effect?
It may be to someone who’s, perhaps, religious and believes in the “supernatural”; But from the chemicals our body produces, to our brain waves, to what time you got home last night, to the scrape on the knee you got when you were a kid, to everything big and small in your life, don’t you think it all leads up to your reaction to the very words you’re reading right now? Like I asked before, if you were to rewind life as if it were a video tape, and played it back… Or if there was a parallel universe where you live the exact same life without any differentiation, that you would not be doing the same thing you’re doing now?
If I am, in fact, reading this right, and you’re answer is ‘no’ to these questions, then as I said earlier, I respectfully disagree.
I fully agree with this. Suicide is selfish but still a person’s right. My question is why does everyone feel the need to stress the selfishness of suicide?
Suppose I reject my parents’ religion, causing them to believe I’ll spend eternity burning in hell. This is selfish and causes pain to them, but no one would suggest that their pain should trump my right to choose my own religion, and no one would call me selfish.
Suppose I estrange myself from my family because they’ve offended me. This is selfish and causes pain to them, but no one would suggest that their pain should trump my right to associate with whom I choose, and no one would call me selfish.
Suppose I decide to divorce my husband because I no longer love him. This is selfish and causes pain to him, but no one would suggest that his pain should trump my right not to be married to someone I don’t want to be married to. No one would call me selfish.
Now suppose I kill myself. This is selfish and causes pain to others, and most people will suggest that their pain should override my right to control my own life. Even the people who agree that it’s my right to do so, will emphasize the selfishness of my actions.
Why the double standard?
People make choices all the time. Sometimes they decide not to decide and that is also a choice. In your example, the person decided, he made a choice, to flip a coin and live or die by the way it falls. That is a choice, regardless of all the physical laws that govern coin tosses.
Some people are pushed in the direction of suicide - major depression, chronic debilitating pain, despair, etc. But they were not BORN into some inescapable destiny. Something happened along the way. A very real something. But they were not born with some sort of suicide gene. Destiny? Free will? Good vs bad luck? Maybe a mix of all three? OK, I would go with that, but I don’t hold to the idea that someone is just doomed from the start.
From the look of it you’re not talking with somebody who believes in free will or luck (presuming luck differs from fate). If you posit a fully deterministic universe, all there is is destiny, in the sense that your path is (pre-)determined.
I think a lot of it is to try to dissuade people from contemplating suicide.
“Suicide is the coward’s way out” is one of those memes passed around, to encourage behaviour that is best for society, and to make things seem more straightforward than they are.
Again, I’m not advocating suicide.
Well yes, and in one sense the answer to the OP is simply “Aren’t we all fated to do every action?”, with an ensuing debate on free will.
But assuming that the OP considers any action to be free, then suicide is an equally free decision, for the most part*.
As a compatibilist, I often don’t see the need to make the distinction, but that would draw us off-topic so I won’t elaborate on that.
*As I’ve mentioned before, certain forms of brain damage can result in unrelenting suicidal behaviour, and we might expect on some rare occasions a child to be born with a defect that would lead to similar behaviour. But most suiciders are unlikely to have such a defect.
Well, taking just the question in the thread title, the possible answers are “Yes, some are,” and “No, they’re not,” with the ensuing debate inevitably being one on free will. So you can’t exactly fault a person for bringing his deterministic perspective in here and arguing based on it - and it’s fair to warn people that that’s what’s going on.