Suicide

[bennyboy]

See my post above.  Suicide has more in common with pleading not guilty by reason of mental defect than it does with being convicted for murder.  We let murderers get treatment instead of punishment if it turns out they were mentally impaired, because we recognize a person can reach a state where they are not culpable for their actions.  Suicide is quite often done in a state where the consequences cannot be truly appreciated.

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."

In a deterministic view, it should be said that ALL wrong behavior is a product of defect, for a right-functioning person should not be capable of wrong behavior, since in determinism, right-functioning is equivalent to right behavior. So it seems to me that some in this thread, yourself included, are attempting to apply different philosophies to different cases: in case X, one should be thought of as a free agent, and in case Y, one should not. However, this is special pleading: if in ANY case, philosophical determinism may be appealed to to excuse wrong behavior, then nothing but a completely arbitrary division of categories prevents ALL cases from appealing to the problem of determinism.

This arbitrary asymmetry also shows an unwillingness to engage with those other people I mentioned: murderers, rapists, pedophiles, etc. because I guarantee if you talked to ANY of them, they'd tell you they hated what they did but couldn't control themselves.