So how about the other part of my argument - that if it’s about not hurting others, not causing distress, what about a situation where someone continuing to live causes others distress? If I have ten implacable foes who’ll dance on my grave, but rue and curse and spit and despise every moment I live, am I under an obligation to kill myself because my living causes distress to others?
If suicide is unacceptable because it causes hurting to others, what about a situation where living causes hurting to others? I think you’re missing my point that is someone is unloved and unlikeable, it may well be that their death doesn’t cause that distress, or even ends it.
I find it really hard to imagine where someone’s continued existence is going to cause pain to others unless there’s something criminal going on - in which case it’s a matter for the courts.
I feel the only justification for killing someone else is self-defense (or defending someone like a child, who can’t defend him/herself). I’m anti-death penalty. I don’t see an obligation to kill yourself because someone else is upset at your existence.
Can you think of no ways to cause pain or otherwise act immorally without also acting criminally? I can think of a few. I can also think of many ways that someone could act criminally and yet not be found guilty in court. And even beyond that, I can easily imagine someone acting criminally, being imprisoned or otherwise punished for their crime, and yet their victim still feels significant distress at their continued living.
I do - it’s there in your arguments that someone’s choice to die should be impacted by the distress that their choice would cause. Continued life is causing distress. Continued life is causing harm to others. Why does that determine matters on one side, but not the other? What’s the justification for what seems at least to be a double standard?
You are free not to commit suicide for however long you want.
I have known people in horrid, long-term physical pain with no hope of relief this side of the grave. Two committed suicide, one with the help of her daughter. It is arrogant, nay despotic, to aver that society should have the right to require them to continue suffering because others disagree with their choice to end their own lives.
Hogwash. Someone’s grandfather’s continued existence is diminishing their quality of life – because when the old fart dies, junior will inherit a bunch of money. By your (weird!) reasoning, Gram’pa is obliged to kill himself so the kid gets the riches.
There is no possible way that’s comparable to taking into consideration the grief that a suicide might cause to family and friends. If the person in question is truly suffering from such misery and pain that life is not worthwhile, I would hope that family and friends would understand.
In any case, in neither case is anyone obliged to live for others. Nobody owns anyone else. Your love and friendship are in no way obligatory. There is no double-standard, unless it is that love is understanding, but antipathy is not.
I don’t really see the difference. Many people with mental illnesses such as severe, untreatable depression suffer more pain than people with severe, untreatable medical illness.
I think everyone should be able to opt out in a painless manner if they so choose. It’s their life and they have the right to live or not live it. Arguments about it being selfish and cowardly are kind of backwards. How selfish of you to want a person suffering some kind of intolerable anguish to keep doing so just because you don’t want to feel grief.
It isn’t my reasoning. I’m applying Broomstick’s reasoning to an alternative situation. That’s why in the part of my post you quoted there I pointed out that the justification was in their arguments, not mine. I actually agree with you, personally, apart from that last sentence about love and antipathy and understanding, though I may just not be parsing that correctly.
I think you may be doing it wrong… I don’t think the two models are anywhere near as comparable as you might be seeing them.
When I do find myself having suicidal thoughts, the pain and grief it would cause my family and friends is a big deterrence. But I don’t think this means I owe them my life. I think it means I owe them my love, and so I need to take this into account in my actions.
I used to be totally opposed to Dr assisted suicide, but my feelings changed a few years ago when a friend of mine had a family experience with suicide. Her grandparents were in their 70s & grandma had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She did not want to go through the hell of therapy that likely would not have worked anyway. So she decided she wanted to kill herself. Her husband of 60 years did not want to live without her. So they both traveled to Oregon & purchased exit bags.
[quote=]
A suicide bag, also known as an exit bag or hood,[1][2] is a device consisting of a large plastic bag with a drawcord used to commit suicide. It is usually used in conjunction with an inert gas like helium or nitrogen, which prevents the panic, sense of suffocation and struggling during unconsciousness (the hypercapnic alarm response) usually caused by the deprivation of oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide. This method also makes the direct cause of death difficult to trace if the bag and gas canister are removed before the death is reported.[3][4][5] Right-to-die groups recommend this form of suicide as certain, fast, and painless, according to a 2007 study.[6]
[/quote]
They committed double suicide and left a note explaining their choice and expressing their love for their family. Grandpa signed off by saying ‘See you up there soon’.
A suicidal teenager needs help and intervention. But cases like that of my friend’s grandparents are another story and it even seems oddly romantic that they decided to go out together on their terms.I
I am in favor of society assisted suicide some of the time.
Before someone jumps my shit…at first I was thinking they were in their 80s and had been married 60 years, but later remembered they were in their 70s and were married 50 years
Right, but we don’t condone vigilante justice, do we? Saying someone unliked and despised has an “obligation” to kill themself is skirting awful close to a lynch mob in my view.
Tough shit - your distress and your pain do not give you the right to kill someone else. What part of “murder is bad” do you have an issue with?
I’m not happy about suicide in general. I won’t even say I condone it under any circumstances, at best I tolerate it - it’s an evil, but a lesser evil than something else.
Suicide is bad because, first of all, someone is killing someone. Granted, they’re killing themself but I still refer to it as self-murder because it is - it’s the deliberate ending of a human life. Now, much as I’d tolerate murder for self-defense, to save one’s own life, that doesn’t mean I condone such a killing, only that I tolerate it. Likewise, someone in unrelievable agony due to a terminal illness, yeah, I can tolerate that person killing themself. It’s a lesser evil. That in no way makes it a good thing, or even a neutral thing. Killing yourself is a bad thing. Spending your last 4 months in screaming agony that can’t be alleviated is a worse thing.
And if you don’t share my reverence for life well, we’ll going to have to agree to disagree because to me this isn’t about logic or winning an argument it’s about ethics and morals.
You’re “distressed” or miserable because the man who ass-raped you as an 8 year old is still alive, rotting in jail? (Random example - I sincerely hope you never experienced such a thing) I’m sorry, but you are not entitled to his death. The best you get is “he’s locked away so he won’t ever hurt you or another innocent ever again”. On the other hand, if he escapes and shows up at your house threatening you or your children I don’t have a problem with you blowing his head off with a shotgun because that would come under self-defense as I see it. You hunting him down with the express purpose of killing him? Sorry, that’s first degree murder, you go to jail forever.
As I said earlier, I set a mighty high bar of conditions that have to be met before I find a suicide tolerable. Most people just aren’t going to meet it. I may not say it out loud in front of the grieving but most suicides I’m aware of killed themselves for either fixable problems or dumb reasons from my viewpoint. I am well aware my viewpoint isn’t universal, but then neither is any other viewpoint on the subject. Hence, we’re here in Great Debates.
I think it seems to be comparable in Broomstick’s viewpoint, but they’re who I’d best find out that from. All this aside, I’m sorry that you have suicidal thoughts.
Yep, seems like it. It’s still a byproduct of your reasoning, though.
I take no issue at all with it. I’m simply pointing out that if your distress and your pain give you the right to have a say in whether someone should live or die, then your distress and your pain give the right to have a say in whether someone should live or die. It’s not my argument, it’s yours.
You spend a little time pointing out other arguments against suicide, which are certainly all well and good, but they don’t negate that your “other people’s distress” argument works on the other side of matters here, or at least should do, even if it doesn’t determine the final answer (just as distress of others in case of suicide doesn’t totally determine the final answer for you).
You seem to have missed my point that actually the person in question might not be rotting in jail alive. But that aside; why is it you get to cavalierly dismiss the pain and hurt of others in this case but not the other? If pain and hurt of others matters, it matters. You can’t use it as this big factor involved in deciding what happens in one case, and then dismiss it entirely when it comes to another. If you want to say that the distress that someone feels at someone still being alive isn’t at all relevant or shouldn’t play a part in deciding what happens to that person, great! But that also means it shouldn’t play a part in deciding what happens to a person who wants to take their own life, either. You can’t claim hurt to others as a needed and important part of the decision on one side and then ignore it on the other. That’s a double standard, and doing so suggests that there is no particular value placed on it except when a particular result is sought.
I mean, if your answer to it was “Yes, people being in a lot of distress at someone’s continued life does count against them living, just as it counts for them living, but not enough to counterbalance reasons for living X, Y, and Z.”, that’s fine and makes sense. If your alternative reasons against suicide weigh up enough to counterbalance it, fine, but your reasoning still exists. Either hurt of others is something we have to take into account, or it isn’t. You can’t have it both ways.
I sorry you seem to have a problem comprehending my position. I believe human life has a certain inherent value that is not to be discarded lightly, I believe deliberately hurting other people is wrong, and that killing human beings is a bad thing.
Unless you understand those starting points you’re not going to get anywhere with my viewpoint.
For most people killing yourself is wrong because you’re murdering someone and you’re causing real pain to other people. You have to have a hell of a lot of justification to overcome those two points. In the case of a hypothetical person dying in agony who can not be saved, their pain is causing distress not only to them but to other people, who will also be distressed/pained at their death. In that case, a self-killing ends one source of pain (human suffering and witnessing human suffering) even if it can’t avoid death. So yes, the suffering, dying person is no longer suffering and while the survivors will suffer due to that death they at least feel some sort of relief at not watching another person in agony. At least some pain is mitigated in that case, that’s what makes it tolerable.
Other people being distressed that a person is alive is a bad thing because that person’s existence is causing them pain, but killing that person is also a bad thing. I am unable to imagine a scenario where killing someone just because they are intensely disliked is justified. Can you at least try to come up with something?
Now, combining universal hate with something else might be a factor… the “distress to others” is NOT the sole deciding factor here. I might argue that someone dying in horrific agony is justified in ending it even by lethal means even if that might in no way alleviate pain for others. It’s but one factor among many. This isn’t math, where you add up numbers and reach a conclusion.
Interesting timing, I guess. This morning a resident of my building jump off the roof. I have no info on who it is yet or what their condition is.
I’ve consider doing that, but have rejected the idea because it won’t be fair to the my neighbors or the clean up crew.
Well the Medical Examiner van just pulled up, guess that’s not a good sign. I live in a SRO that is supportive housing for people with mental heath issues.
Although it is true that life is not to be discarded lightly, you have absolutely no way to know that it is being done “lightly”.
No one should have any right to decide whether I, an adult who knows my situation better than anyone else, should live or die other than me. Period. (I’m fine, for the record. This is theoretical, at the moment.)