Imagine you’re a torture victim, and you’ve just been given a fatal wound. You’re in staggering pain and you will soon die. You choose to take your own life–understandable. Is this acting morally, that is, is suicide ever the *best* action to take, or is it merely an acceptable one?
This might sound like an irrelevant question, but it brings up an important issue for me, which is, under what circumstances do moral principles apply? If you were doomed as described, would it be immoral to kill your buddy sitting next to you if he had a hope of escaping and living happily? Would you have any moral accountability? It seems that you would, that you must still respect the rights of others, but is that it?
I’m writing a short essay on the morality of suicide, and it was just a subtle issue that I couldn’t give myself answer to. Another example which might be more realistic is a situation where an individual is about to commit suicide because they’ve determined that they can only live in suffering. Obviously it would be immoral for them to run around killing people before they die.
I’m struggling a little… I want to say the following:
“I don’t think that suicide can be characterized as moral, because to be moral an action must contribute to the overall happiness of one’s life, and I do not think that that is equivalent to minimizing suffering, because it presupposes the possibility to have a happy life, whereas minimizing suffering only presupposes human existence.”
But on the other hand, killing someone when your life is doomed seems like it would still be immoral, and I don’t think you could do immoral things but not moral things. Can someone help correct my error?
This quote from OPAR p. 24708 may help"
Suicide is justified when man’s life, owing to circumstances outside of a person’s control, is no longer possible; an example might be a person with a painful terminal illness, or a prisoner in a concentration camp who sees no chance of escape. In cases such as these, suicide is not necessarily a philosophic rejection of life or of reality. On the contrary, it may very well be their tragic reaffirmation. Self-destruction in such contexts may amount to the tortured cry: “Man’s life means so much to me that I will not settle for anything less. I will not accept a living death as a substitute.”
That’s a great quote, thanks. I think I’ve got a handle on it now.