Suicide

This chapter examines suicide as one response to the human predicament. It is argued that while suicide can bring relief from appalling quality of life, it is not a cost-free exit from the human predicament. Even when it is the least bad option, it nonetheless involves annihilation. Moreover, it fails to address the problem of meaninglessness at any level. Indeed, it often (even though not always) exacerbates that problem by limiting the sorts of meaning that are sometimes attainable. Various arguments supporting a categorical opposition to suicide are examined and rejected. These include arguments that suicide amounts to murder, that it is irrational, unnatural, and cowardly. The interests of others sometimes do but sometimes do not render suicide wrong. The finality of death makes suicide a momentous decision, but it does not always make suicide wrong. The conditions under which suicide is and is not a reasonable option are discussed.

Confusion · Criminology · Epistemology · Irrational number · Limiting · Meaning (existential) · Opposition (politics) · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Engineering · Ethics in medical practice · Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Abuse · Law · Philosophy · Psychology