Suicide: An Ethical Delimna

[bennyboy]

Why would you ignore the suffering of the would-be-suicider? How is that a balanced evaluation? Isn't that expecting them to be a martyr of sorts, as a matter of course?

When making ethical considerations, one doesn't normally balance one's own needs against a stranger's. I wouldn't, for example, decide that I need money more than Mr. Smith does, and that it is therefore ethical for me to steal his money. Even if I were hungry, it wouldn't really be ethical for me to steal from Mr. Smith, unless he's doing something to prevent others from attaining food or the wealth to buy it.

Think of what our moral world would look like if we could all balance the strength of our desires against those of others. What about rape? If I want sex badly enough, and suffer greatly from the lack of it, is it therefore ethical for me to rape someone? Can I cite my own relief from suffering as a fair trade for the suffering inflicted on an unwilling victim?

No. The calculus of ethical decisions is meant to temper acts of the self so that they don't negatively impact others, not to use one's own more-than-yours suffering to justify doing what is wrong.

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Assuming the role of someone contemplating suicide and also assuming there is no other alternative to relieve my suffering, why is someone else not suffering more important than me not suffering? Wouldn't empathetic consideration for others only serve to worsen my personal suffering?

There's no sensible ethic that requires one to balance one's own hedonic state against others. If you are willing to suffer so that someone else will not have to, then you are behaving ethically.

I don't find appeals to the condition of others very convincing when considering suicide, even in cases where its easy to demonstrate a duty of care; e.g., having minor children. Someone seriously considering suicide is probably going to have issues being a caregiver, not to mention the somewhat frequent accounts of children becoming victims in murder-suicides.

None of this makes suicide ethical.

Far better to help someone with his/her struggles as I'm not sure how receptive that person would be to an ethical argument regarding the merits of suicide, even if it were unethical by consensus.

That's right. But I'm not talking about how best to deal with an actual case of suicide contemplation. I'm talking about whether it is or is not ethical for one to kill oneself. And, by the normal standards of ethical consideration-- i.e. a check to make sure one's actions are not seriously inconvenciencing or harming others-- suicide is clearly unethical.