Hi Sean,

"So I want to know if we can find a rational reason for suicide."

I think we cannot, because reasons for suicide are grounded in the irrational assumption that the future will either bring no change to our current, unbearable situation, or will worsen it. The assumption is irrational, because it requires accurate prediction of the future. But we cannot predict the future with certainty. On top of this error, it additionally ignores the possibility that there could be a good turn of events.

One may say that there are some situations like diagnosis of terminal illness that deliver a rational reason for suicide (preempt pointless suffering). But even then, since we cannot predict with certainty, there could be a turn of events: it's not impossible, we only calculated it to be highly unlikely.

However, I think that to a suicidal person, all I am writing here will have no meaning, because suicide does appear rationally justified to him or her. Our own reasoning helps us in generating powerful justification of powerful drives, and it also helps in rejecting or avoiding any possible defeater of this justification (as you mentioned above). To conclude with Hume, "Reason is and ought only to be the slave to the passions".

Talking of suicide as a positive thing is such a taboo in the Western culture. I am glad you've decided to begin such an important conversation! Thank you.

Margarita, you are so right. Most people do not like to speak about it but I am optimistic as this community seems full of enlightened and open minded individuals.

Hello Sean,

I am currently working on an essay about de la Mettrie, and since you are asking I want to bring to your attention his "Anti-Seneca", in which he elaborates also on suicide. Unfortunately, the text here is in German, so I cannot cite directly. In summary, Mettrie holds that by committing suicide one will not only become free of pain and misery, but also of any future experience of happiness ("hell" as well as "heaven" end in death). Mettrie cites Augustinus in maintaining that behaviour is called virtue or vice not absolutely, but relative to time and society ("suicide once was virtue, and so was revenge").

Seneca, whom Mettrie criticises for other reasons in his book, holds that one must always distinguish between oneself and circumstances (offhand translation: "living in wretched circumstances does not mean that I am wretched").

I hope that is useful. On a personal note, I think it's always worth taking the time to get a second, outside opinion when it comes to decisions between life or death.

Thanks Martina, an interesting answer. I am unfamiliar with de la Mettrie so I'm glad you brought him to my attention. It's interesting, Mettrie seems to be purposing a trade: No more pain for no more pleasure; is it worth it? This could lead to a discussion on the role of happiness in our lives. Should it's pursuit be all encompassing? Slvoj Zizek claims happiness is "an unethical category" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C315x8T0zU). Couple this with what you pointed out, that suicide was once a virtue, and we have an interesting perspective. The name de la Mattrie reminded me of Emile Durkheim who I had completely forgotten about until now. He was a sociologist who wrote a book on suicide , appropriately titled "Suicide"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_%28book%29). He did not delve into the philosophy of it but focused on the statistics. He found that apparently, suicide rates were higher in times of peace vs. rates during times of war. This supports Zizek's claim that we are "ready to suffer".

I would like to ask if you believe happiness is a noble pursuit or a selfish one, but as I write I realize that I am unsure of how we should define happiness. If we claim happiness to be the lack of any pain or sadness, we would be left with what suicide would grant us in Mettrie's trade. So in order for suicide not to bring happiness it must be more than the absence of pain and sadness. But here I realize that I failed to define pain and sadness. So before I continue I would like to ask you, and anyone else who cares to contribute, for an explanation/definition of sadness and happiness. I think we can agree on what physical pain is and that it would be fair to place emotional pain in with sadness; but if anyone disagrees with this please say so.

To explain the original question of the post I would like to take a perspective of differences in logic of two opposite phenomena. As quoted above "living in wretched circumstances does not mean that I am wretched", we find that reality is opposite of this. When someone is living in wretched circumstances, the self becomes indistinguishable from the circumstances and therefore it feels that 'i am wretched'. How I interpret this question is that when we think of suicide, or more appropriately about 'logic of committing suicide', we think from an 'alive' person's perspective. For a dead person such questions do not arise and they have no meaning in face of death. An alive person would evaluate this from the reference frame of emotions (pain and pleasure), justice, morals, responsibility, values and from various other perspectives. It seems that even at the beginning of inquiry, suicide has been considered as something unjust and unethical. So logic is given to preserve the position of alive individual. But suppose if a dead person would raise this question, from his/her perspective - 'shall I take a re-birth?'. Well I don't see any other question that is feasible from a dead person's perspective. Although this questioning is itself impossible but hypothetically for the sake of discussion here I brought this point.

Lets take for example two persons holding two opposite beliefs, say, belief in body-mind phenomena. One believes in monism and the other one in dualism. Both would provide their own logic and reasons to support their respective beliefs. If such beliefs originate from experiences, then it would become very difficult to believe the other way. Because understanding the other person's perspective would require breaking one's set of beliefs where one is secured enough to lead a life in peace. So the result is pain and preservation of one's beliefs would yield pleasure.

Here we have two different phenomena of life and death, instead of two set of beliefs. Both are opposite to each other, and both have their own logic to preserve their respective states. Obviously death doesn't ask any questions and therefore it doesn't have any logic, but questioning from life's perspective is enough to lead inquiry. After all we are alive beings asking these questions, so our perspective would be an alive person's perspective. But we can perceive the possibility of death which occurs when life is gone. So the immediate state after life is of death only. The logic of preserving life would be against logic of inviting death.

The reality of 'life' and our 'self-absorption' (self being part of phenomena of life) in it causes pain when we think of ending it or even imagine about ending it. Because when one thinks about ending life, immediate imagery comes about 'what after that'. So there is pain that after death self would be lost as the phenomena of life would not be there. More than life it is the self which brings fear of losing itself. Like I related the quote above, wretched circumstance is 'life' and practically we feel being wretched because we become a part of it. So the notion of 'i am wretched' too. In this context when life is gone, i am also gone. And this is the dreaded fear.

So I would like think of this question in terms of 'insecurity of losing self' which is at the root of differences in pain and pleasure. Secured means pleasure, preserved (retaining one's self) and insecure means pain (losing one's self).

Life and Self are One. Death separates them apart, so it is seen as unwanted. But again this is an alive person's perspective. So in order to justify suicide, I think we should ask questions from the perspective of 'death'. That means already considering death as wanted and desirable, and seeing ourselves by 'merging our self in death'. This is possible when we speak from a Dead man's Perspective. This is possible by sheer PROJECTION of our desires on the dead. That implies by supposing that our desires to preserve life have become the desire of the dead to preserve itself. That also means projecting pain and pleasure on the dead. So how would it feel if we are already dead and feeling the pleasure of being dead? Would we ever desire to be re-born? Obviously not, because being alive in that case would mean losing the self of dead, which would bring its own pain. So a dead man is as happy as an alive person, both desiring to preserve their respective states. In that case death would be a preferable phenomena and many would like to become dead. [I believe this is the source of many religious beliefs also where life after death is pictured as consisting of pleasure and pain based on deeds. One only projects the feelings of the un-dead over the state of dead. In this manner death becomes a pleasurable invitation (masochism).]

well I believe this has become little fictitious, as this seems to be the theme of many mythological beliefs and phenomena too, where evil is manifested as just a projection of our inner destructive instincts.

Http://www.highexistence.com/topic/the-2000-page-suicide-note-by-mitchell-heisman/

this is a nice discussion, read if you like

a good question is raised here, what is more important - life or death? Life is superior to Death OR Death is superior to Life?

it seems to be a question of choice, more than seeking importance, in my view. Because rationally speaking, if life has no important questions then question of ending life is also not important. So its a choice and choices don't wait for important things. Either they are or they are not. Specially, the choice to live is the ONLY major decision that one can take when facing suicidality within. Because it will be a courageous decision to take, since the logic of death would say that life is not important. Otherwise I believe that at other times one is open for the choice of death.

Thanks for you for sharing your ideas with me Tarun, they are very interesting. It seems in pursuing a dead man's perspective you were forced to transfer so much of what it means to be alive that you ended up with the same question. If the dead man had these perceptions, would the only fundamental difference between life and death be that death is without an end? If the dead man has pain, pleasure, and the "self" he might as well be alive (though I think he might wish for a more complete death as he would be capable of thought and feeling pain/pleasure yet trapped in a box six feet underground).

I think your strongest point was about the difficulty people have with breaking the set of beliefs that they have come to live with. I always think that the most frightening thing about seeing a ghost would be the fact that it would destroy most of what I think I know. I'm glad you pointed this out because I think this may be part of why a discussion on suicide is difficult to start with many people. I mean it's kind of funny to suggest, but if this discussion leads to a sound conclusion in which we find suicide to be a rational decision, we might feel obliged to commit it (but I'm only joking and I doubt we'll find such a conclusion).

You talked about the 'insecurity of losing self', and that losing one's self is what we are afraid of when we consider death. But if I were to lose my "self", what would I have left to care about the preservation of that "self". Isn't it only the "self" that cares about the preservation of the "self"? And if the decision of suicide has been made, then the "self" must be content with (or at least accepting of) the fact that it is about to be lost. Also I do not understand how death separates life and self. It seems to me that the "self" is a result of life, much as light is a result of the bulb. If we destroy the bulb there is no more light. (If you wanna say there are still waves out there somewhere ok, but I don't mean for the analogy to be taken this literally.)

Maybe we can answer this question a bit better if we first soften our proposal. Instead of asking if killing ourselves is a good idea, why don't we ask if being accepting of death's inevitability is as wise as it sounds? If we can accept our inevitable fate and welcome death with open arms, why should we wait?

reading some part of that discussion, I have seen that there is an inherent fear to leave life and take death as a choice in open. ''If nothing is important in life then all things are equal''. So choice of life and death do not matter. But still we chose to live. There seems to be a fear of voluntary apocalypse here. Again there is a need to preserve the species. The thought and desire to live is the survival strategy. Animals and plants do not have free will and choice, so they have to live under the forces of nature. On the contrary, we have a will, we are conscious of our decisions, we are aware of our pain and pleasure so we can exert our choice - what to be like. So our psyche is shaped in such a way that we do not want to think of death and suicide, otherwise there would be a mass following to this belief, like there is for any other belief. Masses want common beliefs to follow and think about, if everyone would start to think of committing suicide - a voluntary death, then our own system of beliefs which has been evolved for us to survive would lead to our own destruction. So everyone seems to be forbidden of this idea. So we become choiceless here.

I am thinking of taking this from a different perspective also, a statistical one. Suppose everyone in the world comes to an agreement that we all have a choice to either live or die, and anyone can exert a will to any outcome. How would the world behave then? Will everyone chose to die? Or vice versa. What is the probability that we will see a fair outcome of 50-50? Will the statistics differ from what they are in present times, when we fear death and desire life intensely? Lets see the actual statistics. According to the CIA World Fact Book, the global birth rate is 20.18 births per 1000 population. The global death rate is 8.23 deaths per 1000 population (2008 est). So, the World Births to Deaths ratio is about 2.452:1. That means for every 2.5 infants born, 1 dies. That means world's population is increasing with 2.5-1=1.5 times every year (I have left the calculation of impact of economy in this estimate). Very UnFair..!!!

If the answers to above questions are in favor of choice to live then we will have more growth rate in world's population and vice versa. In any case world is not going to end. So I do not feel there should be any fear in choosing to die as we know that there are others to continue our species. One needs to be more altruistic in this case. Obviously there would be a blow to our 'survival of the fittest instincts' but then such a free society and mass consensus would carry some other form of compensations with it.

"Suppose everyone in the world comes to an agreement that we all have a choice to either live or die, and anyone can exert a will to any outcome." I don't understand this. I have yet to meet someone who refuses to recognize our freedom of choice in the matter of suicide; this is different from the many people who refuse to view suicide as a rational option. I don't understand why you provided these statistics either. 8.23 deaths per 1000 people tells us nothing about the rate of suicide.

But maybe I am misunderstanding what you wrote. Did you mean to ask what if everyone had a choice between mortality and immortality? In that case the numbers you provided make more sense. The question of mortality and immortality is probably a better version of the question I asked in my last post; so which would you choose Tarun? To live forever or the life of a mortal?

I've asked many questions but have given no answers of my own so here I will answer: I would chose the life of a mortal. Immortality seems like a horrible existence. To connect this to your first post, the life of the immortal man is much like the life of the dead man who possesses the qualities of life; there is no "end" for this man. The lack of a finish line makes the journey pointless, or at the very least lacking a destination. So my answer leads me to another version of my original question: If life is a journey, and death is it's ultimate finish, why should we not take the short cut of suicide?

Thanks for the link Tarun, and thank you for sharing so many of your thoughts. I am enjoying our discussion!

With free will I was referring to the rational decision of dying. Since most people fear to die on rational choice (not being able to commit free will under the influence of emotions), so rationally coming to a conclusion and implementing it as an act of free will is what I meant by my previous response (acting on free will due to reason).

Stats that I provided was about total deaths including incidences of suicide. It was to argue against the instinct to preserve species. Since our species has to survive by laws of evolution, so death in any way would decrease the growth rate of population. So globally speaking if our overall death rate is higher than birth rate then our species would be close to extinction. This is the natural stance which we see around the world. But in an ideal or a hypothetical condition if everyone dies only on free will and choice, by the plausibility of the argument it would not lead to extinction. And if we add the number of deaths by natural and accidental causes also, the balance would still be maintained. I wish I could have more data and formulas to elaborate on this point. The only difference would occur at people fearing the act of death and rational suicide. I think fearing to die in a particular situation causes more deaths because we unconsciously invite dangers for ourselves. And again if most suicides happen due to despair and fear, then the point which you raised that we should compare the ideal situation of 50-50 suicide due to free will with the current scenario of suicide due to despair alone, then we may more easily see the differences in these two groups of people. Well we certainly have our null hypothesis then, but for me right now data is not sufficiently available.

This link can be used as a reference for some discussion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_suicide Here we see that most suicides are caused due to racial differences, gender differences, health concerns, sexual orientation etc. Although more further explanations of causes are not listed here, but we can conclude that most of these factors have psychological nature behind them. Emotional forces are the momentum for them. Such incidents of suicide are different from rational suicides (the hypothetical conditions which we are comparing) where a person is not under a state of despair and takes suicide as a willed action, just as a choice among many.

To your other question, I do not think that anything lasts forever so definitely life of a mortal is a better one because this is the only choice we are left with.

Sean,

I think your initial question brings forward (at least) two paradoxa.

1) Responsibility shift: If I think that I am the sole owner of my life, and if I want to end it, why then do I still want to get somebody else's permission to end it? It is like a person saying: Please tell me that suicide is a good thing, so that I can execute my ownership right of ending myself. That is assuming full responsibility in planning the act, but at the same time have someone else assume full responsibility for my having executed the act.

2) Solution shift: If we assume, for the sake of argument, an uncrossable line between being alive and being dead, meaning that both states are absolutely different from each other; Why would I believe that the solution for my problems in the alive state can be found in the dead state? After all, the suicidal thought is "The only solution to my problem is killing myself". In this case, I would propose that the solution can be found in a state that is totally alien to the state that contains the problem. If that applies, then I think we may also propose that problems of the dead state could have their solution in the alive state. How many dead people have so far visited the alive state and solved their problems here? Yes, we may claim that there are no problems in the dead state (or in any proposed afterlife). But how can we be sure of that?

I am shirking the immortality question out of practical reasons (we die).

http://ronbarak.tumblr.com/post/34107039735/death-why-we-should-be-grateful-for-it

The positive view of death, a bit off topic but useful matter.

Martina, I am not considering suicide and so my question is not a "responsibility shift". My question has nothing to do with permission. Your solution shift makes sense but I would like to try to get away from the ideas of depression and personal problems, I am curious about the concept of a rational suicide. We are all alive, and, for inherent reasons we (or at least I) can not articulate, we would like to keep it that way. But is our instinct to remain alive for as long as we can rational? I think we can agree that instincts do not always lead to rational decisions; that one night stand, that Big Mac when you were too hungry to cook a proper meal, all the stupid things we do for to satisfy our needs. And the stronger these urges are, the harder it is to think rationally. So I want to know if we can we find a rational reason for suicide. Not because I am looking for an excuse to kill myself but because I am curious about it.

Also, I think I did a poor job at purposing my immortality question. I raised this hypothetical, not because I mistook my own question for something practical, but because I feel that if we explore this question we may be able to apply some of what we learn to my initial question. Maybe we wont, but I do not see the harm in exploring it.

Thanks for sharing your ideas with me Martina!

Tarun, the immortality question is not asking whether or not something will or can last forever, it is directed towards your perspective on life. Do you want to preserve your life forever? If not, then why are you preserving it now? I will admit my inability to answer this question. I too would chose the life of a mortal, though despite wanting my life to eventually end, I can not answer as to why I do not want it to end this very moment.

And I see what you are saying now about rational will vs. irrational will. From here on out I wish for us to only consider rational suicide as that is what I am most interested in.

That article on death was great. It really shows how irrational the prospect of death makes us all act.

Thanks for your thoughts and the links!

Hi Sean,

"So I want to know if we can find a rational reason for suicide."

I think we cannot, because reasons for suicide are grounded in the irrational assumption that the future will either bring no change to our current, unbearable situation, or will worsen it. The assumption is irrational, because it requires accurate prediction of the future. But we cannot predict the future with certainty. On top of this error, it additionally ignores the possibility that there could be a good turn of events.

One may say that there are some situations like diagnosis of terminal illness that deliver a rational reason for suicide (preempt pointless suffering). But even then, since we cannot predict with certainty, there could be a turn of events: it's not impossible, we only calculated it to be highly unlikely.

However, I think that to a suicidal person, all I am writing here will have no meaning, because suicide does appear rationally justified to him or her. Our own reasoning helps us in generating powerful justification of powerful drives, and it also helps in rejecting or avoiding any possible defeater of this justification (as you mentioned above). To conclude with Hume, "Reason is and ought only to be the slave to the passions".

Sean, quoting your words from one of your previous replies, "If life is a journey, and death is it's ultimate finish, why should we not take the short cut of suicide?" A similar statement could be that if one knows that one day a child has to die why to give birth then. That means here I give the responsibility for this proposition to our parents and the ideology that one should produce kids. Isn't this the root of this idea about rational suicide? When we think of committing suicide, we think about ending our own life. But who gave us this life? Our parents. After taking birth, since we have already got a life, so the focus and responsibility now shifts onto us about either to sustain this life or to end it away. The decision of which I was not a part, now I am held responsible for carrying it. A child never resists the birth process and such questions of unwanted births is not raised by a newborn.

We can enter a very new and different area of discussion from here I think. The number of people that are alive right now in this world is all what we call life (leaving the inclusion of life in other organisms like plants, animals for time being) and these are the only people which can give an authority of having life or of being alive. But I think the dead is something more than just someone having no life any more. I feel the people, who are already not born, are also dead in one way, i.e. having no life. But such a person occupies another distinct category of someone non-existent at all. Because the dead person was once alive, that means existent. Shall we call an unborn person a dead person then? - dead before even getting birth.

If I say now, by referring to my point stated above that responsibility is not just of the person having life but of those also who gave this life in the first place, then I lessen up my burden of sustaining this life. After all it was not my decision to be born. Someone else decided my fate. We are choiceless at the moment of conception inside a womb. There have been several of my siblings who have never taken birth. And will never. But why do parents reproduce then? Generalizing this question to whole of humanity, why do we humans reproduce? The answers we already know.

So I think that ending or sustaining life is a collective decision which gets manifested in the form of an ideology. So I am not ending my life just now because I am a part of the ideology that one should not take one's life. At the same time if I am giving birth to a child then also I am a part of an ideology that one should produce kids. So being alive I am actually following a convention, a belief, a system that I have been given birth by some elders so I must sustain it. Because the people who gave me birth in the first place were producing me with an intent to see me alive, were actually making me existent. My life is their legacy. By producing us, parents and our previous generations make us obliged to sustain something they have given us.

So the question comes that shall I keep following the convention and tradition of keeping myself alive or shall I just stand against the decision of my parents that why they gave birth to me. My life is a cultural decision which was carried over by my parents. When I take my life through suicide, I am going against the whole society who holds the ideology of giving birth and sustaining lives. That's why the thought of committing suicide is considered as bad by everyone, and if someday I tell everyone that I am going to commit suicide right now in front of them and I want everyone to be a witness to it, not even a single person would be there who won't try to stop me. Doctors, psychologists, social workers and police would also come for my rescue. By following the idea of committing suicide I would be 'inherently' considered as going against society and its norms but in this case my 'anti-social' behavior would invite sympathy from others not a punishment. And I would become eligible for a treatment also, of some socially constructed disorder targeting my mood and cognitions (During the assessment of any psychiatric disorder, assessing suicidal ideations is always considered most crucial to know the severity and intensity of psychological disturbance).

So summarizing my point, I believe that the decision of sustaining life is inherently (and unconsciously) a part of my existence which is collective in nature and which is following a tradition and an ideology. And this is why no one favors a rational suicide because it goes against the very unconscious roots of why we reproduce children.

So I am seeing a larger aspect to this rational suicide problem. One needs to stand against the system of thought which considers suicide as immoral or unethical and unjust. Not being allowed to commit suicide on my own will, I am being made a slave to this system. If I say I do not want to reproduce a child, this is same as one person committing suicide. So if everyone would decide to not reproduce children, the ideology and human existence would suffer. Again I am seeing the reflection of Darwin here. In order to survive human species, we have an inherent need to reproduce and give birth to an offspring. This is reflected as holding suicide unjust and sustaining life crucial, in the form of an unconscious ideology.

So what shall I do now about my rational choice to commit suicide? I think by knowing that my life was not my decision in the first place, I get a sense of FREEDOM to do whatever I can with it. Now no one holds responsibility for it. Now I am not obliged to think twice about whether to keep it or get done away with it. I get freedom to exert my free will. I am now free to choose.

Your another question "Do you want to preserve your life forever? If not, then why are you preserving it now? I will admit my inability to answer this question. I too would chose the life of a mortal, though despite wanting my life to eventually end, I can not answer as to why I do not want it to end this very moment. " I believe the answer lies in something more than just a need to survive as a species, something which makes us human and is unique to us humans. Since we are the only species who can use reason and have the choice to sustain life or to end it, so there must be something else than just a biological urge, more psychological and less biological.

Speaking of myself, what holds me from committing suicide is a desire to know more. Whenever I feel to end my life, what stops me is the thought that how can this be my end. I always feel at such moments that there still must be something more for me to know. And also I do not feel autonomous enough to take the action of committing suicide by reason. And if I feel at all my depths to commit suicide, I find that ending life is actually irrational at the moment. So there is another form of rationality that prevents from suicide. A reason which says that I must first fulfill my desires and passions. When there will be no more questions left, it's ok to die then. Passions keep us alive, if not responsibilities and emotions, or fears.

There is a natural outcome to life that it will end on its own. So even if someone does not die due to an illness, or an accident, or some murder, the death will still occur. So one wants to wait for that moment.

Martina,

"However, I think that to a suicidal person, all I am writing here will have no meaning, because suicide does appear rationally justified to him or her. Our own reasoning helps us in generating powerful justification of powerful drives, and it also helps in rejecting or avoiding any possible defeater of this justification"

This is an excellent point! Thank you for sharing with me. I have failed to really appreciate how well we as people can distort our irrational thinking so that it appears as something rational. To some extent I may never be able to trust my reasoning because I can not be sure of how my mind might be distorting it.

Tarun, you raised some interesting points. I like how you mentioned the idea of reproduction, it would be interesting to see a study of the correlation between people's views on having children vs. their views on suicide. I'm against having children, at least personally. I believe there are more then enough people here already, plus countless children are in need of adoption. My view of reproduction relates to my view of the world. To suggest that we'd be better off with a few less people being brought in to it is very pessimistic. To connect this to the terrific point Martina made, my thinking on the subjects of both suicide and reproduction are influenced by my world view. And unless my world view is completely rational, then my views on suicide and reproduction will not be fully rational. They, like my world view, will be distorted by my pessimism which might be a product of any personal psychological woes I may be facing (depression, anxiety). So regardless of my pursuit of a rational argument for or against both suicide and reproduction, I will never fully get there; none of us well, at least not alone.

I think our best bet is to keep talking about this with whoever is willing to engage in such a debate. That way our different perspectives can pick out each others personal distortions apparent in our personal world views. Slowly working from here we may start to gain some insight.

this is a question of applied ethics. see books for arguments for and against. I personally think suicide is not ethically justifiede

I too believe suicide is not ethically justifiable and it is not the answer for any problem. Improper planning, unnecessary commitments, selfness, inadequate communication, less risk bearing ability may cause such extreme decision, but mentoring, counseling and guidance could avoid such pathetic situation

Suicide represents a permanent and irreversible solution to a temporary and transitory experience of pain. All humans experience pain (emotional, physical ,etc.) while alive and have differing capacities for dealing with pain. A completed suicide transfers pain from the person completing the act to the people who love and care about that person. We must teach each other that the greatest characteristic of humans is their ability to transcend pain and use it to reveal their own inner strength and provide encouragement to others facing pain. This is humanity at its best.

It appears that this topic seeks some universal reasoning if suicide can ever be a rational decision. One mistake is to assume that bad decisions are made because of a lack of knowledge and what makes a decision bad, (because the majority does not agree with me)? What we do with our bodies is quite personal and someone of sound mind simply does not want others of differing perspectives to override their own decision making process.

A real discussion question would be on the philosophy surrounding why others take such a keen interest in what others do with their personal life. Can we truly be controlled by law to help us make good decisions about our health with an end result that we are thankful for the input?

Interesting read, gives both perspectives and each one right in its own way !

This question is excellent for introducing a growing reality of a life paradigm based on a premise of individual rights being some sort of a goal. When someone decides that they cannot accept their current situation in life, they may choose to end their life as an expression of free will which does allow us to choose our environment. However, in making this decision, one must deny that there is meaning in life.

To simplify this question is simply to understand if there is "meaning" in life or not.  The natural mathematical reasoning mind would say "no." In my own personal opinion, I would suggest that our growing ego (individualism) teaches us to perceive pain and suffering as a means of transferring only hardship and negative results. If my satisfaction in life were to be based on whether or not I had a "good" day, I would be miserable quite often.

 This is a question of consequences.  The question is "are there circumstances where my suicide will produce better outcomes than my continued existence?"  It seems to me obvious that, if one's continued existence will do more harm than good, then suicide is the best choice and a rational one.  When a soldier or emergency worker willingly and knowingly sacrifices their life to save others, they have committed a form of suicide, yet we praise their "sacrifice."  Similarly, would it not have been best if Hitler had committed suicide rather than become leader of the Nazi's?  When a political prisoner refuses food as a political protest and eventually starves to death, they have committed suicide, but we do not accuse them of being irrational or insane.

In cases where people commit suicide to avoid mental or physical pain, it seems to me this can also be a perfectly rational decision.  Even if the pain will not last forever, it is a simple comparison of current suffering against the value of future non-suffering.  It may be that someone decides that the pain of current suffering is too high a price to pay for future non-suffering.  There is nothing inherently irrational in such a decision.  It may be that an individual makes such a decision irrationally, but it is not a logical necessity that every such decision be irrational.

People often place principles above their own life knowing this will lead to their death.  They are often praised for doing so.  To treat all suicides under all circumstances as irrational or a form of mental illness fails to grasp the complexity of the issue.

Some people value life above everything else.  Others do not - they require some quality in that life to make it worthwhile.  For many people, mere existence is insufficient.  We may not agree with them, but that, in and of itself, does not make them irrational.