Do we own our own lives? A discussion on the morality of suicide and voluntary slavery.

[The Grand Nudger]

A few days ago I was having a discussion with a very religious friend of mine, and we found ourselves talking about the morality of suicide.

Personally I don't think that suicide is a morally deplorable act. I never had any serious suicidal thoughts, since I love life and its endless possibilities, but I can understand how a person could rationally come to the conclusion to end his life, and according to my opinion it should be within his or her rights to do so.

My friend accepted that his religious argument against suicide (i.e. "god is the real owner of your life") doesn't work if you don't believe in a god, but he brought up a really interesting argument based only on rationality alone.

He argued that if we reject slavery we claim that a human lives can't be owned or used as objects. According to my friend this means that you can't end your life because it doesn't belong to you (regardless of the existence of a god who owns it).

I countered his argument with the idea that every human being owns his own life. We reject slavery not because lives can't be owned, but because the lives of a person belongs to him and not to another person.

My friend replied that if I were right, we should approve voluntary slavery. If we own our lives, we should be able to sell them, like any other item that we own.

I didn't (and still don't) have a strong argument against this conclusion, but I don't really like the idea of voluntary slavery being morallly acceptable.

So I thought to bring these questions to the forums and to see what other people think of it. Is suicide morally acceptable? Do we own our own lives? And if we do, can we sell them to someone else?

The current concept of rights that we hold is that some rights are not subject to waiver. Specificlly the right to self determination, in this context. One of the reasons for this is that no corrective or punitive means to compel another (who has sold themselves to you, for example) is consistent with our application of rights. "Selling ones self" would abrogate the right to self determination, in any case-to which we assign a greater value than the right of ownership. Its a concept called (by some) primacy.

Some rights, as the foundations or fundamental underpinnings of others, take center stage when two rights may -in some scenario- come to odds with each other.

[Jackalope]

If you own your own life, why shouldn't you have the right to ask someone else to kill you? I'm trying to come up with a cogent argument against this objection, but I can't find a good one.

I would assert that if you do own your life, you absolutely have the right to ask someone else to kill you if you so choose.

Yes, many would find that logical conclusion uncomfortable - but to my way of thinking, there are many, many more objectionable implications that arise from the concept of non-self-ownership.

[The Grand Nudger]

I also think it's ridiculous that you can be charged with the "crime of suicide". Do I think you should be able to collect your life insurance after suicide...no. So, a bit of a nuanced approach may be required.

[Jackalope]

In my view, we don't. Only the person who's life it is in question has that right.

So, do you think that someone who has been depressed for two months and someone who has terminal cancer have an equal right to end their lives?

Short answer: yes, they do.

The long answer is, as you implied in your earlier post, quite a bit more complicated than that. It's a question of how far we are willing to allow society and the state to infringe upon that right. In the example you gave, the state is certainly going to take an interest in protecting the welfare of someone who is acting irrationally due to the impact of mental illness - and I certainly have no objection to that. Can I rationally justify the infringment of the right in that case? No, I cannot - but I wish it to be so nonetheless.

The hard question that I am wont to ask is this: Why are we as a culture so uncomfortable with the logical conclusions that result from the concept of people owning thier own lives?

What would you do if you came home and one of you loved ones was dying on the floor from an overdose?

I found my mother dying of an overdose when I was 17. Of course I called an ambulance, and I'd do it again if the situation was repeated, regardless of what I think the rational implications of self-ownership are.

You can call an ambulance and save their life, or you can acknowledge their right to take their own life and let them die. It's that instinct that most people would feel in that situation which makes us uncomfortable, in my opinion.

Yes, of course. You and I would do the same.

[Something completely different]

This is true, and indeed most suicides motivated by selfish reasons are due to some kind of mental illness. But what about a person who rationally decides to end his life even if his life isn't threatened by pain and suffering? What if, for example, you were rationally sure that your existence is a danger to others?

Let's say you are a carrier of a (hypothetical) disease that won't kill you, but that will infect anyone that comes in contact with you and will kill 25% of them. Would it be morally acceptable for you to commit suicide in order to spare countless others from probable death?

And what about suicide as a rational act of protest against a tyrannical regime (i.e. political martyrdom)?

Well if one is certain that ones existance is a threat to others or that one can save the lives of others through your death, that is a completly different thing. Then I think one could justify suicide.
Aswell as I think that suicide as protest can be justified.

In case of the disease, well i would at first try to find methots to contain myself. I think the hypothetical desease example is therefor (no offence) a bit far fetched.

On the subject of a rational persons "right to commit suicide"...........

pffffffffffffffff. thinking thinking thinking

The french writer and receiver of the nobel prize for literature (and one of my favorite novelists of all time) Albert Camus argued that life itself could be set equal to freedom and that therefor ending your own life is to end your own "freedom" and people should be prohibited from setting limits or ending their "freedom".

Or one may argue with the idea of utilitarianism and say that a individual is bound to a social contract within his sociaty and therefor bound to not act selfishly by commiting suicide?

[The Grand Nudger]

If someone wants to take their life perhaps they should handle that in a more structured and official way (more structured or official than some random OD that their children happen upon which may or may not be an attempt on their own life). If you're making the decision, make it in a responsible way.
(same with any other end-of-life issue...don't even get me started..my father's end of life issues were fucking horrendous)

[Faith No More]

I was told that the main reason suicide is against the law is so that if one attempts to commit suicde but survives, the courts have the legal power to force that person into treatment.

---

I found my mother dying of an overdose when I was 17. Of course I called an ambulance, and I'd do it again if the situation was repeated, regardless of what I think the rational implications of self-ownership are.

My apologies if I hit too close to home with my question, but my point was to illustrate that it is our instincts that keep us from being comfortable with complete self-ownership.

Perhpas another big part of it is our fear of death, and the fact that allowing people to take thier own lives makes us struggle with our own mortality. Some people just do not want to ever be comfortable with anything having to do with death.

[Dee Dee Ramone]

Suicide is not immoral because;

1 a person is mentally healthy > than I have no objection (but I won't come to your funeral...), euthansia is the solution, not suicide
2 a person is sick > sickness is not immoral.
3 life can't be owned, traded, claimes or whatever. Life is a fact, or not.

[Jackalope]

I was told that the main reason suicide is against the law is so that if one attempts to commit suicde but survives, the courts have the legal power to force that person into treatment.

There may be some historical truth to that. I doubt it's something people get prosecuted for.

In my state, they have the power to hold you for observation / treatment if you are thought to be in danger of harming yourself or others. You don't have to attempt. My therapy doc has shared with me that were I to tell her I intended on harming myself, had a plan, and the ability to carry it out, she would be obligated to contact authorities, who would be under obligation to take me into custody.

I would imagine that there are similar provisions in other states.

[Faith No More]

In Michigan, the doctor only needs to believe you will harm yourself or others to involuntarily hospitalize you. I was involuntarily hospitalized when I was absolutely no threat to myself, but due to my suicide attempt and having a meltdown over the second death of a friend, my doctor believe I was a danger to myself.