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Spies Who Commit Suicide

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MisterSwig

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Recently there has been some talk on this forum about the ethics of suicide. In my view it is a mistake to argue that suicide is universally right or wrong, moral or immoral. Like all judgments of human behavior, context is critical. With that in mind, perhaps we can focus here on an unusual type of suicider: the captured spy.

Sometimes a spy is captured, or about to be captured, by the enemy, and he or she decides to suicide rather than cope with whatever future awaits them. Let's consider a couple specific examples, which I've found on a list at Wikipedia.

Meir Max Bineth was an Israeli agent who spied on Egypt in the 1950s. He got caught during a failed operation and was then tortured for months. The Egyptians wanted to put him on trial, but the night before his court date Bineth killed himself in jail. He did not want to give the Egyptians the satisfaction of publicly executing him.

I think this is a perfectly justifiable reason to kill oneself. While some might argue that Bineth could have enjoyed a day or two more of imprisoned life, I would counter that such a brief and pointless extension of life might be utterly worthless compared to the final psychological satisfaction in knowing that one's suicide will deprive the enemy of a public victory.

Sarah Aaronsohn, a Jew working for the British during World War 1, was part of a large network who spied on the Ottomans in the Middle East. The enemy discovered Aaronsohn and tortured her for days. She refused to reveal any secrets. Her captors then let her return to her house to change clothes. While inside she grabbed a hidden pistol from her bathroom and shot herself in the head.

Aaronsohn killed herself rather than suffer more torture and possible betrayal of both her fellow conspirators and their greater cause in pursuit of a Jewish homeland. Not betraying her friends was clearly a more important value than the continued physical and psychological torment that awaited her.

Such cases of captured spies killing themselves are perhaps the closest thing we have to a truly moral suicide. They are done with great and serious purpose, which might be condemned but certainly cannot be denied or evaded. The purpose is not merely to escape the pain of torture, but to deprive an enemy of the value which is the spy's own self. By killing themselves, they are maintaining the integrity of their chosen purpose in life, which is to fight the enemy and give them nothing. Spies like Bineth and Aaronsohn probably died with whatever joy they could get from knowing that they remained true to their purpose until the bitter end. 

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7 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Recently there has been some talk on this forum about the ethics of suicide.

I think it a bizarre choice to start a second thread to discuss this same topic while the first thread is active.

Regardless, for context, here is the first.

7 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

In my view it is a mistake to argue that suicide is universally right or wrong, moral or immoral. Like all judgments of human behavior, context is critical.

I am unsure what this is in reference to, but just to be clear: there are (a number of) people arguing in that thread that suicide is universally wrong. Nobody is arguing that suicide is universally right. The only argument advanced against "suicide as universally wrong" has been that context is critical, and that some suicides are moral in context.

7 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

With that in mind, perhaps we can focus here on an unusual type of suicider: the captured spy.

[...]

Such cases of captured spies killing themselves are perhaps the closest thing we have to a truly moral suicide.

I agree with you that the cases you've offered are moral (or potentially so, depending on how we evaluate the causes to which those spies dedicated themselves), but I disagree with the idea that this is "closer...to a truly moral suicide."

The example I'd introduced in that other thread (and see how unnecessarily awkward this is?), Brittany Maynard, is a truly moral suicide.

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3 hours ago, DonAthos said:

I think it a bizarre choice to start a second thread to discuss this same topic while the first thread is active.

First, the other thread is in the wrong subforum for a discussion about the ethics of suicide. It's really a thread whose purpose is to reduce suicide to a metaphysical question about the existence of pain.

Second, while you and I have brought up actual examples of people who commit suicide, they are not treated seriously on that other thread, which is focused on the nature and importance of pain rather than the moral element or true purpose of suicide, which is not always about ending pain.

3 hours ago, DonAthos said:

... I disagree with the idea that [spy suicide] is "closer...to a truly moral suicide."

The example I'd introduced in that other thread ... , Brittany Maynard, is a truly moral suicide.

I agree that dignity, or self-respect, is a major value. I'd call what she did dying with self-esteem. Maynard did not want to become a pitiful, hopeless thing in her waning months or weeks, because her purpose in life was not simply survival, but happiness through self-esteem.

Still, there is an important difference between Maynard and the spies I referenced. Maynard's suicide, while tragic, was in no way heroic or crucially important to anyone but herself and her circle of family and friends. A captured spy's suicide, however, is sometimes a monumentally historic achievement and considered crucial to causes of national importance. A captured spy sometimes must endure months of torture without revealing secret information, while simultaneously looking for a clever way to dispose of themselves. Much effort goes into this goal of maintaining their own sort of dignity in the end.

Maynard had to move to Oregon and get a prescription filled.

I don't think the two cases are on the same level.

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3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

First, the other thread is in the wrong subforum for a discussion about the ethics of suicide. It's really a thread whose purpose is to reduce suicide to a metaphysical question about the existence of pain.

This is a good point.

I would add, however, that the question of whether suicide can be moral is also central to that other thread (whether it's generally appropriate for that subforum or not), and probably provides the motivation for an attempt to "reduce suicide" in the manner you suggest.

Certainly many people there continue to assert that suicide is immoral, at least, even if they concede (when pressed) that "pain exists."

3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Second, while you and I have brought up actual examples of people who commit suicide, they are not treated seriously on that other thread, which is focused on the nature and importance of pain rather than the moral element or true purpose of suicide, which is not always about ending pain.

Fair enough.

3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Still, there is an important difference between Maynard and the spies I referenced. Maynard's suicide, while tragic, was in no way heroic or crucially important to anyone but herself and her circle of family and friends. A captured spy's suicide, however, is sometimes a monumentally historic achievement and considered crucial to causes of national importance. A captured spy sometimes must endure months of torture without revealing secret information, while simultaneously looking for a clever way to dispose of themselves. Much effort goes into this goal of maintaining their own sort of dignity in the end.

Maynard had to move to Oregon and get a prescription filled.

I don't think the two cases are on the same level.

If we are discussing "national importance," or what have you, I'm sure you're right. But I was responding to the idea that the spies' suicides was "closer to moral" than Maynard's. (Which seems to imply that Maynard's decision was somehow "further away from moral"...)

In acting in her own self-interest -- which you have as "happiness through self-esteem" -- I think Maynard's decision was fully moral (and moreover consistent with the Objectivist Ethics, when properly understood). In order to act morally, an individual does not have to take action "crucially important to anyone but herself"; that it is crucially important to the self will suffice.

As far as "heroism" is concerned, I don't doubt that the spies' tales are on a different level, requiring an immense amount of effort and willpower. But neither would I discount Maynard's bravery in her own circumstances (though others, in that other thread, have called her a coward for her choice). See the resistance she encounters in on this forum -- among people who are supposedly dedicated to individual human happiness, no less; in greater society, too, such suicide remains taboo, and often illegal (prompting the move you mention). I'm sure she caught hell from some of the people around her, maybe some of them close. To endure that and push through it is no small thing.

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53 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

In acting in her own self-interest -- which you have as "happiness through self-esteem" -- I think Maynard's decision was fully moral (and moreover consistent with the Objectivist Ethics, when properly understood). In order to act morally, an individual does not have to take action "crucially important to anyone but herself"; that it is crucially important to the self will suffice.

Yes, we basically agree on that. I don't mean to suggest that Maynard was less moral than the spies.

Initially I intended to leave open the question of whether the act of suicide, itself, could be considered moral. This would include the spies and Maynard. I focused on the spies because I thought it was the clearest example of what might be considered a moral suicide, rather than a mere "philosophical non-rejection of the standard of life" suicide, as Peikoff might put it.

I'm still about 10℅ unconvinced that the actual act of killing oneself could ever be considered moral. It strikes me as morally neutral unless done for a purpose that extends beyond your own life, not in a self-sacrificial sense, but in the manner of the captured spies who wish to deprive their enemy of a value.

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I think here, if it is known that there is an execution date for sure, it all comes down to strategy to win the war - dying sooner may be a better bet. Often, it may be better for the spy to hold out as long as possible, to help win the war as a loyal spy later on, or in future wars. Rescues can happen at weird times.

Edited by Eiuol
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There is a passage in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables about the battle of Waterloo that might be relevant here.

Hugo describes the end of the battle, when the French forces are fleeing in panic, and only a few columns of elite, well disciplined soldiers remain in order to cover their retreat. They are constantly getting whittled down by enemy fire, but they keep fighting until there are only a handful of them left and they are all out of ammunition. The English cannons are loaded and ready to wipe them out, but the English soldiers are impressed by their bravery and offer them an opportunity to surrender; their leader just yells back "Merde!"

Hugo argues that these are real winners of the Battle of Waterloo.

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18 hours ago, DonAthos said:

But neither would I discount Maynard's bravery in her own circumstances (though others, in that other thread, have called her a coward for her choice).

She was brave. And, after considering her story more, I believe her purpose in committing suicide was two-fold. On one hand she wanted to go out with dignity, not only in her chosen time and manner of the final act, but also in the way she lived the last months of her existence. She refused, for example, the brain radiation treatment because it would have severely ruined her quality of life and most likely would not even have saved her from death.

On the other hand, she had a related reason for suicide:

Quote

 

Because the rest of my body is young and healthy, I am likely to physically hang on for a long time even though cancer is eating my mind. I probably would have suffered in hospice care for weeks or even months. And my family would have had to watch that.

I did not want this nightmare scenario for my family, so I started researching death with dignity.

 

It appears that Maynard's full purpose was to save her family from the nightmare of her final, undignified days as a human vegetable.

I'm comfortable saying that this qualifies as a suicidal purpose which extends beyond her own life, and thus, while not as heroic, it certainly falls within the same moral category as the captured spy.

Edited by MisterSwig
Rephrased final paragraph.
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5 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

I'm comfortable saying that this qualifies as a suicidal purpose which extends beyond her own life, and thus, while not as heroic as some spy or soldier suicides, certainly falls within the same moral category.

It's not comparable. Here, we're talking about striving for the best until the end, not avoidance of an assumed end (becoming comatose means you wouldn't be mentally alive).

One's -purpose-, if moral, does not extend beyond one's own life. That wouldn't be selfish. William's example, while not suicide, is fighting for virtue now, not dignity later. Dignity is nice, maybe, but not a virtue.

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1 hour ago, William O said:

The English cannons are loaded and ready to wipe them out, but the English soldiers are impressed by their bravery and offer them an opportunity to surrender; their leader just yells back "Merde!"

Hugo argues that these are real winners of the Battle of Waterloo.

I had to look this up. It has been a couple decades since I read Les Miserables. Hugo was referring to General Cambronne, who survived the war and apparently denied ever saying "the Guard dies, it does not surrender" and "shit/go to hell!" However, others believe that those words of defiance were actually spoken by General Michel, who did die in an attack against the enemy at Waterloo.

Nevertheless, we can focus only on Hugo's romantic rendition of the story, and see that he writes:

Quote

To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For being willing to die is the same as to die; and it was not [Cambronne's] fault if he survived after he was shot.

This establishes Cambronne's courage and unwillingness to give the enemy the reward of his surrender. And in that suicidal defiance he remains true to the purpose of his life which is to fight the archenemy, even after that enemy offers him mere survival.

Hugo then offers a more passionate and grand evaluation, which concludes as so:

Quote

This Cambronne, this man spending his last hour, this unknown soldier, this infinitesimal of war, realizes that here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doubly agonizing; and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because of it, he is offered this mockery,—life! How could he restrain himself? Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general's flushed with victory, the Jupiter's darting thunderbolts; they have a hundred thousand victorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million; their cannon stand with yawning mouths, the match is lighted; they grind down under their heels the Imperial guards, and the grand army; they have just crushed Napoleon, and only Cambronne remains,—only this earthworm is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriate word as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths, and the froth is the word. In face of this mean and mighty victory, in face of this victory which counts none victorious, this desperate soldier stands erect. He grants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality; and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superior force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression: "Excrement!" We repeat it,—to use that word, to do thus, to invent such an expression, is to be the conqueror!

Hugo does a masterful job of showing how in the face of material defeat, Cambronne won the spiritual battle with one expression. I'm not sure this counts as suicide. But it sure does relate to the spies who would rather die than allow themselves to be used for a purpose contrary to their own.

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

One's -purpose-, if moral, does not extend beyond one's own life. That wouldn't be selfish.

Are you saying that an individual's purpose absolutely cannot extend beyond his own life? Or that it doesn't extend because it's not selfish? Perhaps an unselfish purpose could extend?

I think there are many cases where a person's purpose can extend beyond their own life. And not in some mystical, religious context. I'm talking about controlling how your death affects the living. Do the living get to write down in their history books that you ratted out your fellow spies before being publicly hanged? Or do they get to write that you stayed true and found a way to fight the enemy even on the eve of your trial?

In a different context, we could talk about organ donors, who after death literally extend their living purpose by bequeathing parts of themselves to needy recipients. This is also an example of exerting some control over how your death affects the living.

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4 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Dignity is nice, maybe, but not a virtue.

It's a cardinal value. Objectivists call it self-esteem.

Without reason or purpose or self-esteem, what is the point of human life?

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An individual's purpose does not extend beyond his own life, because his purpose is his life, selfishly. A purpose could extend past life, but such purpose is not proper - not really a purpose at all, but a twisted one. It's unselfish, sometimes altruistic. Morality is for life now, not a metaphorical eternal soul to be judged later and has no bearing and who you are now and will be.

Purpose is a deeper word than positive effects/hopes after your death. This is not what drives an Objectivist hero. Virtue and value seeking are your purpose for your life. A spy would not die to be a good soldier, he'd only die if it was a worthy risk or helps attain a greater value. If he lives despite the risk, so much the better. If he dies and the enemy planned an execution, it is best to do what brings him closest to the victory.  If an execution is not known, it is better to fight the torture and combat the psychological enemy. This would allow him to win the war - most likely he's an important spy if he is still alive and not killed on sight.

I don't really see dignity as self-esteem, either. In one way, dignity is acting in a way that demands respect and honor. On the other hand, dignity is about appearences, how worthwhile something appears, and pertains to tradition usually. Dignity is not essential because it is only an emotional consequence of one's philosophy.

Self-esteem is all about self-worth to yourself and your ability, it comes before a sense of dignity.

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19 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Purpose is a deeper word than positive effects/hopes after your death. This is not what drives an Objectivist hero.

As the soldiers are coming to capture John Galt in his tenement house, he explains to Dagny why she must pretend to be his enemy.

IMG_20161224_100509.jpg

What would have been the purpose of Galt's suicide other than to deprive his enemy of a value and stop them from torturing Dagny?

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9 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

You said an individual's purpose, not what suicide would accomplish. See the second paragraph in my previous post.

An individual's purpose is what he wants to accomplish. So I'll ask again, what was Galt's purpose? What would he have wanted to accomplish by killing himself?

There is no answer to my question in your second paragraph.

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On 12/23/2016 at 7:59 AM, William O said:

It makes sense to do this when one wants a post to get more attention than it would if it was buried deep in another thread.

Yes, I think I've seen other people do that sort of thing before, at least -- and it was in part to discourage that kind of behavior that I commented on the proliferation of threads. I think this community is best served by keeping threads of discussion together, within reason. It helps facilitate that discussion to have the comments all together in an orderly and convenient manner, rather than having to cross-reference. (And I'm sure that many of the posters here want attention paid to their posts, and probably more than we sometimes get; but I shudder at the thought of us creating thread after thread for that purpose.)

But I believe MisterSwig when he says that he wanted to address an aspect of the debate that the other thread was not geared to discuss (even if that aspect already underlay the discussion). That's a valid reason to create a new thread, imo, even if I would have decided differently in this case.

On 12/22/2016 at 3:27 PM, MisterSwig said:

I'm still about 10℅ unconvinced that the actual act of killing oneself could ever be considered moral. It strikes me as morally neutral unless done for a purpose that extends beyond your own life, not in a self-sacrificial sense, but in the manner of the captured spies who wish to deprive their enemy of a value.

I don't think that morality depends upon having purposes which extend beyond a person's own life. I think it perfectly moral to work for the benefit of one's own life and happiness.

On 12/22/2016 at 7:34 PM, Eiuol said:

I think here, if it is known that there is an execution date for sure, it all comes down to strategy to win the war - dying sooner may be a better bet. Often, it may be better for the spy to hold out as long as possible, to help win the war as a loyal spy later on, or in future wars. Rescues can happen at weird times.

This is a touch unclear to me. Are you agreeing with MisterSwig that it might be better (morally) to die sooner, for the sake of a strategy to win some war?

If so, then I'm not quite sure how to reconcile this with your position in that other thread, where you'd said (among much else):

On 11/21/2016 at 11:43 AM, Eiuol said:

[Suicide] is a rejection of life. It is not ever morally good. That's what the thread is about really - is it ever morally GOOD? I say never...

And then, in this thread, you've said:

18 hours ago, Eiuol said:

An individual's purpose does not extend beyond his own life, because his purpose is his life, selfishly. A purpose could extend past life, but such purpose is not proper - not really a purpose at all, but a twisted one. It's unselfish, sometimes altruistic. Morality is for life now...

That seems to apply to a spy who commits suicide in order to support a war effort. That isn't "for life now." So... what's your evaluation of the suicides that MisterSwig described in the OP? Are they moral actions? Or something else?

18 hours ago, Eiuol said:

I don't really see dignity as self-esteem, either. In one way, dignity is acting in a way that demands respect and honor. On the other hand, dignity is about appearences, how worthwhile something appears, and pertains to tradition usually. Dignity is not essential because it is only an emotional consequence of one's philosophy.

Self-esteem is all about self-worth to yourself and your ability, it comes before a sense of dignity.

We've talked around "dignity" a bit. And maybe (in the spirit of part of this very post) it deserves its own thread, because I'm not yet satisfied that I understand it conceptually yet -- not even when I employ it.

When I think about that word as I would apply it to Maynard, or to my own grandfather (whose Alzheimer's-related death I described in the other thread), what I think is that I would not wish my "life" reduced to a state where I was gibbering, or defecating on myself, or a painful burden to those I love -- or generally speaking a gross caricature of a man. (This is not to demean anyone who suffers from those sorts of issues in the context of a life that they can yet enjoy and find value in; examples raised elsewhere like Stephen Hawking or Christopher Reeve demonstrate that a life of value can be lived in many trying and undesirable circumstances. But even those examples might not be comparable to what my grandfather experienced, or what Maynard expected with her brain cancer.)

I would rather die "as a man," and with a certain sense of decorum, not as a matter of "appearance" exactly (and certainly having nothing to do with "tradition") -- but almost as... an artistic statement. A statement about how I see myself, and the universe, and what I'm willing to allow myself to become. I don't know. That's not very clear, but I don't know that I can do better yet.

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Swig, I don't know how what one wants to accomplish is their proper purpose. At least, that wanting isn't what makes a goal a proper one. Clearly, one may want to spread Mormonism, but that doesn't make it proper. This because one's purpose is life, as defined by our nature as rational animals.

If you mean what is Galt's -particular- purpose in relation to -his- chosen values, and presume his purpose is proper, I can answer in more detail. He wants to accomplish an ideological revolution, and protect the people he has determined to be essential to rational society. Anything less is a sacrifice, his actions ought to go towards that big, integrated goal. Them getting to Dagny would likely end the whole plan - so if she were captured to get to him as a threat, the end of his life would bring him closest during his own life for his life goal. His death would make her torture pointless for her captors. This should be enough to explain the purpose of suicide in this case - to attain or get closest to attaining the goal of revolution. It's not some sort of extended or alternate purpose, or how history would judge him. Galt said nothing about how things would be after his death.

I'd disagree that Galt should kill himself in that case. Interestingly, Dagny is the one put in Galt's position, but she opts to go as far as to kill someone to save Galt from torture. To me, -that- is the proper course of action.

*

Don quoted me as saying suicide could never be good. Well, the spy case is a rare case of it being good that I hadn't thought about. Under a few clear conditions:

1) The day of execution is known
2) Knowledge that your side is wholly just
3) Knowledge that death on your hands brings you closest to victory in life - and dying by their hands is a step back
4) Knowledge that you can't be saved

4 is tough to know, but as a spy, you'd probably know how or if rescue is possible. A POW would not usually know. In this case, when a spy is going to be killed, all 4 conditions are met. Also, I say this is "life now", as in getting closest to victory up to the last moment is still for your own life.

Dignity is an unwieldy term - often when people talk about it, it only refers to a culture's view on what makes a life dignified. If you mean dignity as self-esteem, that's begging the question. We're asking if suicide can be dignified. Dying as an artistic statement, that is a pretty Nietzschean thing. Not that being Nietzschean is enough to be wrong always, but I can find passages for you where Nietzsche talks about it. I don't know if Rand ever did. (I wrote part of a short story on this idea once.)

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

[Galt] wants to accomplish an ideological revolution, and protect the people he has determined to be essential to rational society.

So why would he kill himself? He's clearly more essential to the rational society than Dagny.

Do you not accept Galt's own statement of his own purpose?

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1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

Do you not accept Galt's own statement of his own purpose?

Not as a proper one for suicide, no. The same reason you gave of how important he is. I think It's fine for drama, though - it's not a philosophical argument.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Not as a proper one for suicide, no. The same reason you gave of how important he is. I think It's fine for drama, though - it's not a philosophical argument.

Would you agree then that John Galt is not an Objectivist hero, since he doesn't have a proper purpose?

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1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

So why would he kill himself? He's clearly more essential to the rational society than Dagny.

Do you not accept Galt's own statement of his own purpose?

 

35 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Not as a proper one for suicide, no. The same reason you gave of how important he is. I think It's fine for drama, though - it's not a philosophical argument.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and here on this forum,
discussions of suicide challenge decorum. ...

 

Midas Mulligan answered Swigs objection in The Utopia of Greed on pg. 742 of Atlas Shrugged:

"But, John!" cried Mulligan, waving his arm at the valley, "if anything happens to you, what would we—" He stopped abruptly and guiltily.

Galt chuckled. "What were you about to say?" Mulligan waved his hand sheepishly, in a gesture of dismissal. "Were you about to say that if anything happens to me, I'll die as the worst failure in the world?"

"All right," said Mulligan guiltily, "I won't say it. I won't say that we couldn't get along without you—we can. I won't beg you to stay here for our sake—I didn't think I'd ever revert to that rotten old plea, but, boy !—what a temptation it was, I can almost see why people do it. I know that whatever it is you want, if you wish to risk your life, that's all there is to it—but I'm thinking only that it's … oh God, John, it's such a valuable life!"

And Eioul, Galt gives his reasoning in The Egoist, pg. 1003 of Atlas Shrugged:

"I don't have to tell you," he said, "that if I do [kill myself], it won't be an act of self-sacrifice. I do not care to live on their terms, I do not care to obey them and I do not care to see you enduring a drawnout murder. There will be no values for me to seek after that—and I do not care to exist without values.

 

While Francisco and Hank could be potentially be added to this list in one sense, Francisco answered it for quite another on pg. 708:

"You still love me—even if there's one expression of it that you'll always feel and want, but will not give me any longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it, and you'll always grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant to another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me, and it won't be treason to either, because it comes from the same root, it's the same payment in answer to the same values. No matter what happens in the future, we'll always be what we were to each other, you and I, because you'll always love me."

 

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8 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Would you agree then that John Galt is not an Objectivist hero, since he doesn't have a proper purpose?

Nah, it's not like he goes on much more than that paragraph. At worst he is mistaken that suicide here is the best way to attain or get close to his (proper and rational)  goal. The principle to apply is correct though: defending values for rational self-interest, for life now, not for history.

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