Is suicide a selfish act, a courageous act or morally neutral?

Circumstantial. Sacrificing yourself to save others is noble and courageous. Wanting to end your life if you’re terminally ill and in pain is humane. When it’s the result of depression, that’s not something others can or should judge. Depression is a neurochemical thing, and suicidal people generally aren’t capable of moral agency in my opinion.

I have been and always will be for the right to assisted suicide for the terminally ill, but it has to be their choice and their choice alone.
So to answer your question is no under the right circumstances I do not think it is a selfish act.

Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes & I can take or leave it if I plea…never mind

@gorillapaws Depression is not “a neurochemical thing” any more than any other part of human existence. In fact, the theory of depressive realism holds that depression is actually the removal of a filter which makes the world irrationally pleasant to everyone else. Clinical studies show that people who are depressed show markedly superior judgement to people who are not depressed at tasks like estimating whether a given shape will fit a given hole.

A person who commits suicide while depressed has made a rational decision based on accurate observation of the true conditions of existence. The existential choice to continue living despite certain knowledge that we will all ultimately lose to the force of entropy and perish regardless is wholly irrational. Those who choose to return to dust early have made the sane choice. It’s everyone else who is irrational, deluded, and lacking in moral agency.

@SmashTheState Well, some of us have rationally decided we enjoy living rather than being dead.

Generally, I think that suicide is the act of sickness. Chronic Depression is an illness. Suicidal thinking is not normal thinking. I hardly think you can hold someone who is ill morally responsible so I say it is morally neutral.

@janbb No, you haven’t. You may have decided to live, but that decision is wholly irrational. I’m not making any sort of moral or ethical judgement on the non-rational decision to exist, but it’s very clear that it’s not in any way logical.

“Did I request thee, Maker, from thy clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?—”
—from Paradise Lost, Milton

Actually smash – one doesn’t decide whether or not to exist but one does decide whether to continue to exist (perhaps at a few times in their lives.)

In the same camp as @marinelife, morally neutral. Not sure if it is for the same reason though. To my way of thinking, it is so subjective. Are we looking at it from those who remain or those who choose to end their existence in this plane? My only experience regarding this would lead me to say that on an emotional level it is a selfish act but intellectually I have to ask is an act that puts someone out of their misery selfish to them and in my mind the answer is no, it is not.

Have you noticed how many times particularly in the media we, as a society, refer to them as suicide victims? What are we saying here are we saying that they are the victims of their own crime and we are absolved of any guilt? Or are we saying that we failed them because we could not stop it?

@janbb Your parents, being arrogant authoritarian pricks, forced existence on you against your will. You didn’t ask them to make you exist. And if you had wanted to exist, it certainly would not have been in a dying Universe at the ass-end of an unremarkable galaxy, in a wildly dysfunctional body programmed in every cell to avoid certain absolutely unavoidable sensations we refer to as pain.

Any rational and ethical entity looking at this situation would (a) decline to force any further lifeforms to exist against their will, and (b) choose to commit suicide, since we are all doomed to die in any case, and suicide minimizes the amount of pain. Since you and I have thus far chosen to exist, it means we are motivated either by irrationality or apathy. Or both.

No, I really don’t think we have the right to judge, but we do anyway. It’s important. It’s always a shocking act. I think it depends on the circumstance surrounding the suicide.

Take Clarence Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s father. Here was a man, a successful doctor who had always provided well for his family, but in 1926 began having health and financial problems. I believe it was diabetes, for which there was no insulin for yet. So, I imagine he felt tired all the time, hungry, and probably depressed. As a doctor, he knew there was no cure and it would only get worse. He shot himself in 1928 with the same weapon his father-in-law attempted to shoot himself with thirty years before.

Ernest Hemingway thought this was the height of cowardice and is said to have never forgiven his father. But in 1961, after suffering for years with non-insuliin dependent diabetes, high blood pressure that may have resulted in erectile dysfunction, the effects of years of drinking, including depression and the effects of a serious plane crash and burns seven years before, he took his own life like his father, only he used a shotgun.

Hemingway’s third wife, journalist Martha Gelhorn, after a spectacular 60 year career as an international travel journalist and war correspondent, at 89 years old, nearly completely blind and suffering from end-stage ovarian cancer, committed suicide in 1998.

Hemingway’s sister Ursula, a professor at he University of Hawaii, committed suicide when she went into end-stage cancer.

Hemingway’s brother, Leicester, sfter having one leg amputated due to advanced diabetes, was scheduled to have the other amputated when committed suicide in 1982 by shooting himself like his brother and father.

Hemingway’s first wife’s father, committed suicide in 1903 over financial difficulties.

Hemingway’s grandaughter, Margaux Hemingway, a successful supermodel and budding actress, developed a substance abuse problem, suffered from clinical depression, and the night before the 35th anniversary of her famous grandfather’s suicide in 1996, ate a bottle of barbiturates.

I think we all judge, we can’t help it. It frightens us, so we think about it when it happens. Some of us, like Ernest Hemingway himself, might say that all suicides are cowardly acts, and therefore unforgivable by his standards. Some of us might consider the cases of terminal cancer a bit differently than those suicides listed as merely due to financial difficulties. Each one of us judge differently. Even withholding judgement is a judgement.

I used to judge Ernest Hemingway sharply. I didn’t the way he did it at all. His house at the time had thick woods behind it and he could have easily gone out there to do eat his shotgun, but instead waited for his wife to go shopping in town, then sat on the floor in the entryway opposite the front doorway where he knew that she would be walking through when she returned, then he blew his brains out all over the place. I always thought that was the most cowardly Hemingway suicide of all. But nowadays, I don’t know.

But I don’t think any of us should bullshit ourselves, either. We all judge.

@SmashtheState You see no reason to continue existing and I see no reason to continue arguing but thanks for your input.

Well, it certainly is painful for those left behind, especially when they didn’t know it was coming.

—And we judge using filters, whether you call them ethical, or moral filters. Whatever floats your boat. They are the same.

It is simply a person’s final act.

OK, my mom “tried” to commit suicide, twice, while I was in my teens. IMO, it was an incredibly selfish act.

Circumstantial. There are situations where it is noble and selfless, situations where it is simply a reasonable way to end extreme physical suffering, and situations where it can be attributed to other things.
I really don’t think it is ever “selfish” in the negative, narcissistic way that some define “selfish”.

@Dutchess_III: Does your use of quotes around the word “tried” indicate that her attempts were for the purpose of getting attention and not to die? If so, then it wasn’t truly an attempt to suicide. How enormously difficult for a teenager, I’m sorry you had to experience that.

Suicide because of depression (not always biochemical, often it’s a continuing situational depression) usually occurs after the person has spent a long time trying to cope with whatever, until the emotional exhaustion just seems to overwhelm.

Yeah, I don’t know. After the second time I seriously didn’t give a shit if it was real or just a ploy for attention. I really didn’t give a shit if she lived or died. She obviously couldn’t have cared less about us kids.

I wonder if it can be morally neutral when your death has such an impact on those that survive you. I think whether it is courageous or selfish depends on the circumstances. If there is a famine and a grandparent chooses to die rather than allow a child to starve then I would call that courageous. If a parent responsible for young children kills themselves then that would seem selfish.

I recently read the diary of a young woman who shot herself. She was very clever, very talented and very full of life but because of a chemical imbalance in her brain she suffered from devastating depressions that eventually killed her. Her husband and her family were devastated in turn but I just feel sorry for everyone involved and I cannot blame her knowing something of what she was going through.

Every time you people talk about depression being “a chemical imbalance in the brain,” you sound like a bunch of Victorian-era gentlemen pontificating about why a woman’s uterus moving out of place is the reason they become neurotically distraught and must be scientifically raped by medical professionals to cure their hysteria.

“If mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” – John Stuart Mill

Well, it doesn’t stop us from fantasizing about it, pal.

It depends on the circumstance. It’s somewhat selfish if people are dependent on you. (Although people who kill themselves usually tend to think they’re doing everyone a favor).

But it can be an honorable thing. If someone is continuously homicidal or has the urge to rape or attack others, and cannot deal with his own demons and will someday act on his urge, then suicide is a gift to the world and an act of honor.

Courageous act if you don’t leave serious responsibilities behind, especially young kids.

@SmashTheState: You indicate here that ”It is a serious physiological condition which can render a person utterly disabled and incapable of even the most minimal self-care.” If not chemical, then what? (I’m not disputing your rather snarkily worded claim, this is not my field of expertise, I am just curious.) If it is genetic, then what physiological phenomenon causes the depression?

I think it can be all of the above as well as a conscious choice free of depression. Not all depression is chemical, it can also be circumstantial/situational. I have given this topic a lot of objective thought the last few years after losing everything in this recession, getting older now, starting to have some health issues as well and I am all about quality of life. If ones quality of life, be that emotional, physical, financial or the tri-fuckta of all 3 is extremely compromised I take no issue with an individual being able to determine and choose what their own, very personal, standards for “quality of life” are.

I’m not doing myself in but certainly am keeping that option open depending on what unfolds as I journey on.
I do not believe any of us have a right to decide for others what quality of life they should be satisfied with and often the real “selfishness” comes from others that are too emotionally fragile and psychologically/spiritually under developed to be able to honor, even celebrate, the choice of another to take their leave of their own free will when the time seems right to them.
I truly think if suicide was not such a taboo act/subject, that has to remain veiled in a shroud of shame and secrecy that less people would suffer on all levels. If we could throw a big “Goodbye” party for the person in question everyone could make their peace ahead of time instead of being shocked and blindsided by the event.

It’s not selfish, it is desperation. For someone to want to die means there is horrible, horrible internal and/or external suffering, especially depression and anxiety. Mix physical ailments with that and it’s almost inevitable. You may not see it but it’s there. When people do it they generally are right on the edge so you may never get any warning or consideration.

Any and all. Suicide, in my opinion, can result from the purest sanity. Why? A person who is truly sane understands that life’s continuous survival is futile, and that the futility is destructive and ,therefore, the final logical conclusion is an act of insanity. It is the ultimate paradox of a sane, logical existence.

It totally depends on the circumstances and the motivation. A person may choose to take their own life because they have a terminal illness or a condition that leaves them in constant pain or with a poor quality of life. I imagine there might be situations where self-sacrifice might prevent pain to our families and loved ones. I don’t know that it’s fair for me to judge someone cowardly for taking their own life because I’m not experiencing their life.

I find it hard to feel empathy for people who commit suicide in ways that mean their children, and especially young children, find their body. I have no sympathy whatsoever for those who kill themselves and take other people with them.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on this. Nobody asked us if we wanted to exist before we were born, that was thrust upon us. If somebody doesn’t want to exist, I feel like that’s their prerogative.

But then of course…nobody lives in a vacuum, and this action is obviously going to hurt other people, so there is some degree of selfishness required to ignore this and go through with it anyway.

In cases of incurable illness I find it much easier to come to a conclusion – if the person wants to die because their existence is just so miserable, I actually think it’s selfish for family and friends to insist that they stay just to prevent their own grief.

But then again…..there are things other than incurable illness that can cause that level of misery, so I don’t know why it’s hard for me to feel that way about suicide under other circumstances.

So I guess my point is, I don’t really know! It’s a really tough ethical question.

@canidmajor The effects of depression are physiological, the same way the effects of, say, love are physiological. When you are in love, measurable endocrinal changes occur which increase body temperature, change heart rate, release endorphins, and so on. But I don’t see people here referring to love as brain chemistry gone haywire, requiring a pill or therapy to fix. There are a number of theories for the existence of depression, both evolutionarily and functionally, and they all serve a practical purpose. And some, like the theory of depressive realism, involve depression being advantageous. That doesn’t mean depression doesn’t involve serious physiological complications.

Depression makes us see the world more clearly and accurately. The fact that seeing the world accurately makes people want to kill themselves explains why we have evolved to live in a state of irrational delusion. In order to exist, we must throw away logic and reason. It is… irksome to watch a bunch of self-deluded and irrational pollyannas claim that it’s those who are depressed — who are already paying a terrible price for the power of accurate observation — who are irrational.

@SmashTheState Not everyone with clinical depression does see the world more accurately or clearly. That is way too much of a blanket statement to be able to apply to every person. Does a clinically depressed, unmedicated schizophrenic see the world more accurately and clearly? There are way too many variables to be able to make that kind of claim as a generalization for humanity as a whole.

The simple answer is: who fucking knows? My best friend committed suicide and it nearly destroyed me, and I’m still a fence sitter. It depends on far too many things for any one of us to give any kind of definitive answer. The variables are endless, but ultimately, no, I don’t think we should judge. I never got angry at my best friend, though, because I couldn’t. It wasn’t about me. He wasn’t happy and he did something about it, as much as I wish he hadn’t.

I had a 17 year old friend in high school that was just dumped. He got drunk and found his dads gun and shot half his face off. It took two days in ICU for him to die.

One of my friends mom had Pancreatic Cancer and was eligible for physician assisted suicide. And she went that route. She was dead in three months, nothing could be done.

To compare the two situations is a pretty horrible thing to do.

@SmashTheState Depression is a disorder of mood rather than of the thinking process at least it was in the case I referred to above and that was how that victim saw it. You don’t see things more clearly or more logically just differently. Moods are natural and normal and are part of the human condition but when they become extreme they can be a problem.

The mechanic of suicide is the pain one feels dominant the ability to reduce it.
So it’s not “selfish”, but I do think we need to improve the intervention of it.

I really think “selfish” is one of the most pointless labels in the universe and I really hate the word perhaps more than I hate any other word in the English language. I hate it because of its dual nature, the fact that it both describes something done for the benefit of the self (which describes almost everything we do) and also something that is inconsiderate and evil and it’s used an “attack” to call something selfish.

When people call suicide “selfish”, I understand what they mean. The person who commits suicide is doing it for themselves—because they don’t want to live anymore. They are miserable and they want out; it is done for them. At the same time, the people who call it selfish are being selfish in the sense that they want the person to keep on living because they would be sad if they didn’t. They want the suicidal person to stick around for their own benefit.

So it’s selfish and it’s not. And it’s selfish and it’s not to prevent someone from committing suicide. But that’s why I don’t judge—I can’t put myself inside someone else’s mind, no matter how hard I might try. But the fact that many people who attempt suicide and fail regret it almost instantly shows that I don’t think it’s pointless to try and prevent it, even if the motivation is inherently “selfish”.

@DominicY Well said, my sentiments exactly! I couldn’t agree more!

@DominicY is awfully wise.