# The ethics of suicide **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 13, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524 "2011-01-13T22:03:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/61 "2011-01-16T21:35:41Z")
> [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](#): > > Provided you don’t have anybody depending on you for sustenance, is there any good reason why suicide should be considered an inherently evil or sinful act? > > Why is the act of ending your own life so strongly condemned in most cultures? I think because suicide is a form of secular blasphemy. For the most part civilization, culture, art, life, etc revolve around 2 goals. 1. Make sure we keep physically surviving and avoid death 2. Make sure we get pleasure, fulfillment and enjoyment from life Economics, art, medicine, education, etc. are all more or less devoted to these 2 goals. Suicide is the willful rejection of both. Not only do you embrace death (as opposed to the trillions spent annually on things like medicine, shelter and agriculture to avoid death), but you do not find all the art, socialization, education, economics, etc. that we create to make life worth living worth holding onto or important enough to change your decision. I think it makes people realize that the entire crux of their life is rejected by others. And maybe as someone like George Carlin would say ‘it would make people think, and we/they don’t want to do that’. Better to label someone crazy or sick than to admit that everything we devote our existence to isn’t enough to make many people feel life is worth living. Maybe labeling people who think about suicide as mentally ill is no different than how theocracies label those who reject religion as demented or possessed. There can be no valid reason to reject the prevailing orthodoxy. The rejection has to be due to some character flaw. That is also considered a sign you are in a cult, if any rejection of the doctrine is blamed on personal weakness rather than seen as valid problems with the doctrine. As far as suicide I think you need several categories of suicidal behavior, each category bigger than the one above it. 1. Those who commit suicide 2. Those who attempt it 3. Those who seriously consider it 4. Those who flirt with the idea 5. Those with subtle suicide ideation Group 5 supposedly consists of endless millions in the US alone. They are people who have found life traumatic, unpredictable and painful enough that they can’t really muster the energy to be proactive about survival. They won’t go out and buy a gun to kil themselves. But they will not go to a doctor to get preventative therapy and they will not take as many safety precations when driving, as examples. If they are diagnosed with cancer they won’t run to the doctors every chance they get, they will more or less have to be dragged to chemo. It is more a form of passive, apathetic suicide rather than the active form of suicide we label suicide in this culture. Supposedly (no idea if it is true) suicide and depression are more common now than in the past. But is that due to the fact that these issues were not paid attention to in the past, that people have other more pressing problems, or something else? I’ve heard the claim that in the past or in other cultures people’s attitudes towards life is more communal and less on-upmanship and competitive. But Japan’s military culture in WW2 fit that bill, and once suicide helped the group people committed it too a la kamikaze missions. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/62 "2011-01-17T06:47:23Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I have had close relationships with two people who committed suicide. Both were middle-aged me who battled severe addictions to both drugs and gambling. Both were badly damaged people from childhood on. I loved them both and I watched them both try very hard to change and get help and forge a life for themselves. And I watched them both fail. > > I am very sad that they killed themselves, I wish they had found a way out of their pain. But I recognize that their pain was, for them, no different than the pain of someone suffering a chronic illness that sucks all the joy out of living. They were sick. They wanted to stop hurting. They tried. > > The only thing I think it’s valid to expect of people you love who are suffering is that they don’t make the decision to kill themselves until after they have made serious, committed efforts to find other ways of ending their suffering. It IS selfish and cruel to bail without trying. But it’s selfish and cruel to expect someone who is wracked with psychological pain to live with it for decades, too. I agree. Especially with the last sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Revixit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Revixit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revixit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/63 "2011-01-17T20:10:00Z")
> [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](#): > > Provided you don’t have anybody depending on you for sustenance, is there any good reason why suicide should be considered an inherently evil or sinful act? > > Why is the act of ending your own life so strongly condemned in most cultures? It is not only people “depending on you for sustenance” who are harmed if you commit suicide. It harms everyone who knew you to some degree, especially family and friends. Imagine the family members who live with you having to continue living in the house where you killed yourself. Suicide survivors don’t have to have seen you kill yourself to have PTSD and their PTSD can last twenty years or more. Imagine twenty years of being hit in the gut many times a day by thoughts of the last horrible act of someone you loved. Imagine a lifetime of closing their eyes or walking out of a theater when they sense a suicide scene coming up. Suicide survivors can sense those scenes very well. You sentence them to all that and more with your suicide. Think about those things before you think seriously of killing yourself. Do you really want to hurt people that much? Suicide is inherently evil because of what it does to other people. Cultures condemn it because of what it does to other people. I wouldn’t wish being a suicide survivor on the worst person in the world. ---
**Author:** ![His\_Toby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@His\_Toby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/His_Toby)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/64 "2012-10-06T01:49:09Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > I feel it would be evil to commit suicide if by doing so you are ignoring your obligations to others. > > One of the more obvious ones is to not traumatise some poor train driver by throwing yourself onto the tracks in front of him. There are not too many ways to commit suicide without affecting someone. It is better that the people left behind know that the person is dead, not just “out there somewhere”. I have given some thought as to how to go about it that would affect the least people. I can only say that I would try to find a way that a medical person or police officer found me instead of an average person. The other problem is that if you committ suicide and you have any insurance, you can’t let it look like suicide if someone is to get the money. In those cases, it is really hard to not have the wrong person find you. ---
**Author:** ![His\_Toby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@His\_Toby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/His_Toby)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/65 "2012-10-06T01:54:52Z")
> [@Revixit](#): > > It is not only people “depending on you for sustenance” who are harmed if you commit suicide. It harms everyone who knew you to some degree, especially family and friends. Imagine the family members who live with you having to continue living in the house where you killed yourself. > > Suicide survivors don’t have to have seen you kill yourself to have PTSD and their PTSD can last twenty years or more. Imagine twenty years of being hit in the gut many times a day by thoughts of the last horrible act of someone you loved. Imagine a lifetime of closing their eyes or walking out of a theater when they sense a suicide scene coming up. Suicide survivors can sense those scenes very well. You sentence them to all that and more with your suicide. > > Think about those things before you think seriously of killing yourself. Do you really want to hurt people that much? > > Suicide is inherently evil because of what it does to other people. Cultures condemn it because of what it does to other people. I wouldn’t wish being a suicide survivor on the worst person in the world. I had someone tell me that if a certain member of her family committed suicide she would be relieved that the suicidal person was no longer hurting. People need to see that suicidal people don’t see any other choice. As to living in the house of the suical act - some of us are working on ways to ahve it occur away from home. Does that help you any? ---
**Author:** ![His\_Toby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@His\_Toby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/His_Toby)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/66 "2012-10-06T02:05:39Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > Carol, you did not kill yourself. You seem to me to be courageous, and dedicated to finding the way out of this life long nightmare. That’s not mean, not selfish. It’s freakin’ heroic! It’s an example of exactly why suicide is **always** the wrong choice. Yes, it hurts like hell itself. No, it never feels like it’s almost over. I don’t belittle the pain you feel, nor discount it. I know that emotional pain is real pain. > > I hope your new medication, and your new therapist can lead you back to where you can see the path. I lucked out, and only had to try four therapists before I got one who helped me. Drugs only stopped me when I was on a crash course, and mostly that was because they knocked me out entirely. It took cops, and hospitals, and regimented committment to get me out of the hole I dug. > > By the way, before you answer that you are not a hero, take my word for it, yes you are. Heros are not folks who never fall down. Heros are folks who keep getting back up. Be a hero, for yourself. That’s not selfish, because in the end you are the only one who can do it. But you gotta let someone help you. > > Tris Who pays for the help? For the medication? I have medicine that costs $115/month. Counselling costs $80 an hour and in one hour I am just able to cover an idea. My husband wants to separate. He has the medical plan. He has the great job. I do not. The job I have education for gives me nightmares to consider going back to, hives across my body and tears when I think if only I could do that job i could afford help - the help that may or may not get me out of this “why bother” mode that has occurred for so long. BTW, the separation did not start all of this. It just happens to be occurring along with it all. ---
**Author:** ![duchessofdork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@duchessofdork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duchessofdork)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/67 "2012-10-06T03:24:22Z")
Someone has to find your body. My husband shot himself in the head five years ago in our garage. We had a three week old son. It would have been hard to handle even if I hadn’t found his body. But I did, and it’s an image I see every time I close my eyes. I get now why he did it, and I don’t hate him anymore. But I did hate him for a very long time. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely care for the baby. It was hell. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/68 "2012-10-06T04:14:03Z")
**ducchessofdork** : sympathies. I’ve been there. My mother shot herself, and I was the one who first found the body. My own psychological coping mechanism was anger: I was furious with her for it, and it took me years to get over it. My point of view, today, is a little more nuanced, but, for a long time, it wasn’t. As for the actual mechanics of suicide, I don’t think there is a “good way” to do it. (Supposedly, John Donne, in Biothanatos, said that the soul could be voluntarily emitted from the body. Yeah, sure…) ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/69 "2012-10-06T06:11:07Z")
Particularly painful zombie, don’t you think? Reported. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524/70 "2012-10-06T12:28:18Z")
Given the personal nature of many of these posts, reviving this Zombie thread is probably not a good idea. If anyone wishes to resume a discussion/debate of suicide in general terms, they are freee to do so, but I am closing this one. [/Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-suicide/567524.md?page=3)