Suicide

[Faith No More]

You are arguing that a suicidal person's condition is deterministic, while that of a murderer is an act of free will.  Who says a murderer can, generally speaking, "truly appreciate" consequences?

You talk about having a "clouded mind."  I think this is exactly the same thing a homicidal person would say, "He did ____ to me, and then I just saw red.  I didn't really have any ability to think about what I was doing."

I'd argue that unless someone ACTUALLY has a seriouly bad life-- family killed in a car crash or something-- suicide represents a defect.  I'd also argue that unless someone is under immediate threat, rage represents a defect.

I'm not convinced that you or any of the others in this thread have demonstrated that one state is truly deterministic, and the other one of free and malicious intent.

I'm saying that suicide quite often is a result of mental illness, and I don't think anyone here would argue we should hold the mentally responsible for a crime. It's not that it's so much deterministic as it is that the person has a malfunctioning brain. I assume we're accepting the legal sense that intent must be formed at some point to hold the person responsible? My point was that a person committing suicide most likely cannot properly comprehend the consequences of their actions, which is truly the legal litmus test.

As for the murderer, that is murkier, and I'm not convinced that it isn't just as deterministic as suicide. I was using the comparison in the sense of how we see things legally in our courts. That's not to say that the courts are correct in their assessment. I'm not a neruologist or a psychiatrist, so I can't really comment on the murderer's culpability. All I know is what I've experienced and that is the culpability of the person committing suicide.

(BTW, I'm not arguing that all suicide is the same and the result of mental illness. I'm just saying that there are certain cases that prove that suicide cannot be inherently immoral.)