Advanced Ethics
14/09/2015
Take This Life
Rational suicide is morally permissible. To assert otherwise is to deny two of the fundamental human rights, as declared in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration is an accurate basis of moral standards due to the fact that it was created to prevent atrocities to humanity by means of preventing atrocities to each individual (UN). Atrocities can be understood as morally impermissible actions done unto one or many individuals. The document can therefore be understood as a strong support of morality, as far as morality can be understood to connote goodly actions.
Suicide is literally defined as the intentional killing of oneself. It is derived from the Latin suicidium: cidium denoting ‘a killing’ and sui meaning ‘of one’s self’; therefore ‘a killing of oneself’ (Dictionary). Although the denotation of suicide is rather plain, it is the connotation of the term which I am concerned with herein. Edward S. Harris, of Chowan College, suggests that there are three distinct types of self-killing to be distinguished between, these three types are:
1> Self-Sacrifice
2> Self-Irrationicide
3> Suicide.
Self-Sacrifice he describes as “[t]he act of an individual that brings about the individual’s own death due to compassionate and/or belief orientated motivation, which is the result of either extrinsic or intrinsic circumstances” (Harris, E.S.), while Self-Irrationicide is described as an action resulting in one’s own death due the direct ignorance of the individual, drug overdose for example. Harris describes the third type, Suicide, as “[t]he act of an individual that brings about the individual’s own death due to selfish motivations, which are a result of intrinsic circumstances” (Harris, E.S.).
Now that suicide has been given definition, I shall explain what I mean by ‘Rational’. Rationality in the sense I intend it is to mean a state of mind free from the influence of mind-altering physical/emotional forces. This is to include but is not limited to: drugs and medications, torture and other physiological motivators, dire emotional states such as hate and infatuation, and other emotional/psychological influences which possess any sort of very influential forces such as depression or schizophrenia. The presence of any one of these aforementioned afflictions immediately cancels out the moral permissibility of suicide, because these are all states of mind which can be seen as coercive to an otherwise logical train of thought and “[t]o achieve my long range goals, I must never let any belief or emotion get in the way of my ability to see the world clearly and to think about it logically” (Harris, C.E., 72).
The moral permissibility of suicide is connected intimately with human beings’ freedom of will and autonomy of thought. It is a human right to think and believe what one wishes as is very clearly stated in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” (UN, Article 18) and this judgement is absolute outside these limitations of the same document: “In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society” (UN, Article 29.2). The eighteenth article quite clearly enforces autonomy of thought, whereas the twenty-ninth article states, a little more elusively, the right to freedom of will, meaning the right to choose how to act upon information given. This article holds a clause which prohibits freedom of will from being exercised in such a way as would infringe upon the rights of others.
We have now established that individuals are free to think what they please, and are free to take actions upon those thoughts in ways that do not interfere with other humans’ rights. It then follows that an individual should be permitted, morally, to take his or her own life in such a way as does not interfere with the rights of those other than the individual, for example the right to life. By this reasoning it can be stated that to kill oneself with a bullet through the brain is morally permissible, while killing oneself by speeding into oncoming traffic is morally impermissible; wading into a lake while not knowing how to swim is permissible, while flying a plane into a crowded location, or flying a plane into anything while the plane carries passengers is impermissible.
It is this principle with which we are able to evaluate the three suicide styles proposed by Chowan:
1> Self-Sacrifice
Self-Sacrifice is often thought of as a person diving in front of a bullet which is headed towards some other person, although when viewed critically it would also entail a radical committing suicide to support his or her cause. Thinking about radicals committing suicide often brings up images of terrorists blowing themselves up in crowds, although again when viewed critically may also entail a member of Greenpeace, the radical environmental group, martyring himself by drinking some toxic lake water. With the principal we may assert that the former case be impermissible while the latter case be permissible. The first case I brought up, diving in front of a bullet, would be both permissible and morally supererogatory. When “[o]ne of the men in the party, Capt. L.E.G. Oates, became frostbitten [and] . . . realized he was slowing the party’s march, thereby increasing their peril” (Harris, C.E., 2), he proceeded to walk out of the tent and to his death in the blizzard so that the party might have a chance of surviving. This is a more specific case of Supererogatory-Self-Sacrifice: Oates knew he would die doing what he was doing, but continued to take the action anyway, knowing that if he did the rest of the men might survive.
2> Self-Irrationicide
This particular suicide style I find to be irrelevant to the argument herein, because although it is ‘self-killing’, it is not, in fact, ‘an intentional killing of oneself’. Morality and intentionality go hand in hand, an individual’s actions and an individual’s intentions are two very different things and it is for this reason that I exclude Self-Irrationicide from the ability to be moral in either direction.
3> Suicide
“The act of an individual that brings about the individual’s own death due to selfish motivations, which are a result of intrinsic circumstances” (Harris, E.S.). This third suicide style is the most commonly thought of when suicide is brought up, and is also thought of as the most morally impermissible of the three. It is considered so impermissible that many religions refuse to permit honourable burial to practitioners of this third type of self-killing, these religions believe it to be morally impermissible to deprive oneself of a gift one has been given, such an amazing gift as is life. This line of thinking seems to suggest some sort of proof that consciousness is indeed a gift from some Other. “Albert Camus begins The Myth of Sisyphus by categorically stating that the one truly serious problem of philosophy is suicide, because suicide is the confession that life is not worth living” (Masterplots). This is a very interesting point, and hotly contested from both sides of the argument. Even so, no one has come anywhere near a conclusive theory of whether or not life indeed has a purpose or any other such reason for continuing to be rather than not to be. Essentially therefore, each individual is left as his or her own philosophical device, and it is up to the individual to either subscribe to one of life’s partial theses out there, or to create his or her own thesis, and if neither of these two options is viable for the individual then there is nothing stopping him or her from concluding that life is meaningless. There is no evidence to support the contrary and therefore there is no evidence to support the opinion that the killing of oneself contravenes some higher purpose/ultimate authority. Without some Other authority, judgement falls upon the vices of man itself, and these vices are basic human rights. Each individual has the right to life, the right to think freely, and the right to act upon his or her autonomous thoughts in any way that does not interfere with other individuals’ rights to the same freedoms. It is important to note that an individual may revoke his or her right to some freedom or another. “The Miranda decision required that the police inform a suspect who has been arrested or detained of . . . the right to remain silent . . . the right to a lawyer; and, if the suspect cannot afford a lawyer, the right to have a lawyer appointed before an interrogation commences” (Justice), yet the individual is not obligated to comply with these guidelines, in fact the officers making the arrest will often tempt the person into talking before a lawyer is present in order to obtain evidence to support their case. The individual has a right to but is not obligated to remain silent and, being so informed, if the individual chooses to not remain silent that is entirely acceptable; therefore an individual is not obligated to but has a right to life, should they choose to commit suicide that is not morally forbidden/restricted.
I believe I have sufficiently covered the moral and immoral grounds of suicide in each of these three types of self-killing: morality is requiring of intentionality, and without evidence to support any claims to a being or beings higher than ourselves, we are left as the ultimate judges of human morality, meaning that the morality of the intentions of human beings may be derived from a cross-evaluation of the actions taken by an individual with the basic rights guaranteed to each individual. A person may think and act however he or she so pleases, so long as their thoughts and/or actions do not infringe upon the rights of others. This means that suicide which kills only the killer is morally permissible, while suicide which kills others in addition to the killer is morally impermissible.
Works Cited
Harris Jr., C.E. “The Ethics of Self-Interest”. Applying Moral Theories. 5th ed. The Thomson Corporation: Belmont, 2007. 63-87. Print.
Harris Jr., C.E. “What Is Ethics?”. Applying Moral Theories. 5th ed. The Thomson Corporation: Belmont, 2007. 1-18. Print.
“History of the Document”. United Nations. N.a. N.d. Web. 07/10/2015. URL = www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/history.shtml
"The Myth Of Sisyphus." Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-2. Literary Reference Center. Web. 17/09/2015
“A Review of Brydges Duty Counsel Services in Canada”. Department of Justice. N.a. 07/01/2015. Web. 12/10/2015. URL = http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/jsp-sjp/rr03_la4- rr03_aj4/p4.html
"Suicide." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. N.d. Web. 22/09/2015. URL = http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/suicide>.
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. United Nations. N.a. N.d. Web. 07/10/2015. URL = www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
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