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Can suicide ever be a rationally considered logical alternative...?
Most people contemplate suicide out of depression or fear or some extreme emotional condition. But what if someone wasn't being emotional, wasn't suffering any clinical or medical condition, and had simply spent a long time (months) evaluating the benefits and disadvantages, eventually reaching the conclusion that suicide was the most logical rational choice. Someone asked me this question the other day, and I didn’t have a ready answer. So, I'm wondering what others think.
Are there situations where it can all come down to a cost-benefit analysis, like any other personal or business decision? Can suicide ever be considered a rational logical decision? Additional Details
To GeorgeD -- if you hadn't started your answer with a personal ad hominem attack, it probably would have ended up being selected as best answer.
No matter what, I feel suicide is not the best way out. Even if they feel, they just want out, they should reconsider. The person needs to talk it over with a religious leader or medical professional.
banananose_89117
Suicide is death and there is no guarantee there is "life" at the next step in existence. Suicide is a quick way out, which some people would describe as a coward's way out. But except for a person who is depressed and not rationally thinking, I do feel that people with a terminal medical condition or one that is debilitation and will eventually cause the person to become a non-entity like dementia or take away all their independence like ALS, have the right to consider assisted suicide.
serasotto
from the perspective of the person: most likely it would not be rationally considered--more emotionally--or rationalized subjectively, to keep the word. most people who consider suicide are in highly emotional and severely depressed states. even if a person is taking months to think about it, they will most likely be thinking emotionally (i am lonely, no one likes me, i let everyone down, i'm a burdern, i made too many mistakes, too much pressure and pain, things will be better without me, etc.)
as a logical alternative: to come to the decision to commit suicide, i would think that the person considering would believe it to be the most reasonable and sound judgment. . . from their perspective. (family and friends might think differently.)
the clearest hypothetical that i can think of where it would be cost-benefit or business would be someone who was terminally ill and had been for a while came to the conclusion that it would be better monetarily, emotionally (for him/herself and others) to die by their own hand. maybe to die on their own terms rather than the indignity and suffering caused by many serious diseases.
Cathy W
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary situation.
baberae
Suicide can be the rational choice if a person is sick and tired of fighting for their life and are suffering. For a financial problem I can't see killing oneself because there is always the chance things will improve.
If this person says they want to die and nothing is wrong then they have lost hope and joy in life. Can you call that rational?
Suicide is really not about rationality it's about subjectivity and that changes from hour to hour and day to day.
pong_bing_ping
If the person wasn't wasn't suffering any clinical or medical condition, than they are obviously depressed. Most cases of depression go undiagnosed.
Nobody in there right frame of mind would consider this an option, unless they were ill, mentally or physically.
You question asks, A logical alternative to....? To what?
Boredom? , Alternative to what, I ask you. Be more complete.
gyorzxk
In Oregon where I live, a voter initiative was passed to allow doctor assisted suicide. I voted in favor of it. If I had a disease that there was no cure for(my father died of colon cancer and just wasted a way in his final days) I would like to have the chance to terminate my life with dignity before I died an agonizing death with those around me going through it. I favor choice. If you think it is God's will that you live out every minute despite the pain, then so be it. But, for others, I think it is a choice they need to make. Oregon's law has been challenged by the federal government. The same administration that has open Pandora's box in Iraq(who knows how many have died because of the decision) has found it offensive that people should have a choice in how they die. What ever happened to state's rights?
chris
Life has no numerical value. Any monetary gain or cut of losses is no excuse to terminate one's life.
I believe that everybody on this planet has at least some intrinsic value to another person, be it through love, compassion, or something else. Nobody's self-inflicted death really benefits another person.
From what I understand of this world, logic teaches us that life is good. It isn't logical to deny from oneself that which is good.
Tet
Only when he has physical pain that is so unbearable would we give him an excuse and let him go. For others, they are pretty cowardly. If you can't live with depression, you can't live for long, for life has its moments.
justsomedumbgirl
if youre past your two year contestability period on your life insurance
and the death benefit would greatly improve the life of your spouse and offspring, i think it would make sence
alotta people think you cant commit suicide and still collect, you can, just not if youre in your contestability period
Rockvillerich
I believe so. It's a personal decision we all make every day when we choose to attempt to survive. Life has its challenges and due to a person's health and quality of life the choice might tip in the direction of checking out, and be quite logical. Someone with medical problems may choose suicide the same way we take our dearly loved dog to the vet to be put down, with the knowledge that it's the best thing to do.
nice_n_sweet003
No! Suicide is a very serious matter, a mental desiese. When someone is going threw something, no matter what it may seem logical. But after that person gets done going threw that they will be happy. I know that for a fact. When someone desides to make a desion like that they have to relize they are not hurting themselves they are hurting the ones around them. People they love will suffer the rest of there life because someone they love has passed away. Even people they don't think love them it will show, They will hurt. Do people really want to inflict that kind of permint pain on someone? Especially if they claim that they love them. Life does get better you just have to work at it and smile and be happy even if there isn't much to be happy about. Try your hardest because all that matters is that you try. Even if you can't accomplish what you think is the impossible. But if you do it will be the most outrageously sensationable feeling you have ever felt!!!
Boopie
Well, most people don't look at the world in such a negative way. If you think about it, anyone in this world would decide that logically death is better than living another day.
Someday all of your parents, uncles, aunts, brothers & sisters will die. Some of your children may die. The world may see a major disaster, you may experience some horrible accident which leaves you a veggie. How depressing is this? However our brains are equip to fight off all of these logical and truthful things and to let us be hopeful in the future and what it brings. Our ignorance is our very will to live.
Now, someone normal would not decide to kill themselves as a logical decision based on cost-benefit or in-depth analysis. A normal person should have this will to live and hope for a better future. If someone doesn't have it then something is wrong with their brain. The 'happy' chemicals are in short supply because they seeing too much of the world with open eyes.
Wizzard2
Why eliminate the medical? If you have an incurable disease, will significanty pain that cant be controlled, why put yourself and family thru the pain and cost of that existence.
It too is cost benefit, with the cost of not doing it being so high, the the benefit being peace.
kayhan_tajalli
Well. Well so many answers !
Before I start, I think it must have been a first, that you didn't have a ready answer !
I deliberately did not read any of the answers, before answering, I want it to be my impression of it.
A close friend of mine, did commit suicide, he thought long and hard, and planned it in great detail in advance, needless to say, he was successful unfortunately.
Suicide is no more than "an easy way out "! unless one is superstitious , heavily believes in a magical after-life, and he is dying to find-out ! that is mental illness, he is suffering from, without his knowledge, but suffering never the less !
In all other cases, the person knows he is suffering from something, not all pains are clinical or medical !
My friend loved a girl, he couldn't have ! and he was in pain !
When pain becomes intolerable, you seek a way to end the pain, you take pain killers, if not effective, you consider other measures, it all depends on your threshold of pain!
It takes courage ( in most cases ) to live and suffer, and take life challenges, victories and punishments.
one can not look at suicide through the prism of " cost benefit ratio" , as it is an extreme act of ending ones own life, which is an emotional, psychological and sometimes a spiritual dilemma.
I personally condone suicide only in one condition !
- to rescue or protect a life you consider more precious than your own, if there are no other options !
If one still has any life ahead of them. and chooses to end it in order to end one's suffering, then it is no more than a " gutless way out "
It does not require courage to commit suicide, it requires lack of it !
Mr.Spock once said ( don't laugh! serious ), while life goes on, there are always possibilities !
Axel ∇
I consider that "suicide" is just the ultimate symptom of a terrible disease.
This must be distinguished from "euthanasia".
This must be distinguished from "survival instinct" (like those ever-respectable persons who jumped off the twin towers in flame).
This must be distinguished from "sacrifice for saving others" (like those ever-respectable firemen who knew they were going to death while trying to save some ppl in the Twin Towers in flame).
This must be distinguished from those people who commit suicide "in order to ascend", ie in order to "reach another spiritual realm" (in their view).
---
And this must definitely be distinguished from kamikazes who die for killing others.
---
You see, while trying to explain "suicide" (in my view), I realised that I was answering your question: "euthanasia", "survival instinct", "sacrifice for life", "spiritual travel" and "kamikazes".
All are rational behaviours that lead to the symptom called "suicide". But I would say instead "deliberate death".
When a sick person commits suicide, it is not a "deliberate death" but the ultimate symptom of the disease. Not rational then.
Whatever it seems.
In my view, "suicide" (disease) is different from "deliberate death".
J
NO to suicide... NO NO NO...(sigh)
I think the answer is yes. If someone wasn't being emotional or suffering a deathly illness, that person could still rationally find suicide the most beneficial answer.
the equation to justify the suicide would have to be completely devoid of certain human emotion. (not all emotion...)
Example: In high school, i knew a girl whose father committed suicide because his family was in financial ruin. He was a cop, and thought that his pension would help his family. EEke, they found out it was a suicide, so the family received nothing, however, if he had planned it better the equation could have turned up a financial benefit to his family. My friend was so emotionally injured that another formula, which evaluates emotional injury, would prove that the cost benefit would not logically provide suicide as the best answer. However, if a man had a child that did not know him (but he knew the child needed money), a job that paid pension to the children of those that died on the job, and knew how to plan the suicide to look like a murder THEN the cost benifit would bring money to his child without excessive emotional injury.
I can't think of an exact formula because it would depend on the motivation of the suicide.
FORTUNATELY-- We value life more than any other commodity. THat's why people are so emotionally charged with their answers. We don't want a depressed person to kill himmself/herself; we want that depressed person to find happiness. Even in other cultures where in suicide is more acceptable; Suicide is still a heart breaking loss. (from what I know--but i don't know all cultures)
So one could possibly make a formula. However, human emotion would disallow it from being acceptable. IT would be too horrible for a formula to exist that could prove that I could better benefit the world by killing myself. I think any formula would be missing the human heart, making it flawed.
FlaChic
I can see where you are coming from but I don't think suicide is really an option in a pure sense of the act. There has to be an underlying causes since we are brought into this world instinctively to live life. Just my opinion.
Angela M
Sure, for people who are suffering from a painful terminal illness. If they've made peace with their loved ones, themselves, and with their god, they have a right to end their lives on their own terms.
scott g
you should never go some where. where your not invited dude
justme
Suicide would be an irrational - illogical decision.. but never an alternative.
How can suicide, the choice of death, be an alternative to a decision in life? What is the logic in choosing death?
UnaBlogger
I'm struck by the fact that no one even considered suicide bombers and whether their decisions were logical or not. I'm sure if you could ask this same question to practitioners of other religions you may receive totally different answers.
It would not be fair for us to impose our belief system on them. After all, we wouldn't want their beliefs imposed on us, would we?
An even tougher question to ask would be whether or not a murder/suicide could ever be considered a rational act.
Sorry for not answering the question.
Patricia H
No, i don't believe people are ever in a rational/logical state of mind when they are considering suicide.
Skeff
I suppose. For me, that might be in a situation where saving others would require it of me. Especially if they were loved ones. The old and infirm among many Native American tribes would just choose to wander off and die during a season of famine so that the young would survive.
gloryntheflower
The way psychiatry views suicide does not allow for the hypothesis you present, i.e. an unemotional and healthy individual reaching a conclusion that suicide is a logical, rational choice. The psychiatric response is that if one is seriously contemplating suicide, he or she cannot by definition be healthy, logical or rational. Sort of a catch-22. Phychiatry, one may argue, is generally more of an art than science and its rejection of "thoughtful, rational" suicide ignores the philosophical aspects of the question.
It appears that the western, Judaeo-Christian influence on our culture is actually more concerned with how quickly one may kill himself rather that the act itself. We all know that tobacco kills but many continue to smoke knowing that they are commiting delayed suicide. Tobacco is a legal product which receives subsidies of taxpayer dollars. This same comparison can be made with alcohol, obesity and the many other poisons we may choose to ingest with full knowledge that it will contribute to our death. But, ironically, if a rational individual decides to end his life at a time of his choosing and the result is a quick, relatively painless death, he is adjudged mentally incompetent, a danger to himself and is committed to a mental hospital.
The question is, as I said, a philosophical one which begins with the fundamental question of to whom does my life belong. I happen to believe that mine belongs to me and that nobody has any right to veto that intimate personal decision. After all, it is me (hypothetically) who has spent time in thoughtful reflection and my evaluation would be based on the many multi-faceted aspects of my life. No one can actually live in my shoes and know all the nuance that was involved in the thought process and, accordingly, no one should attempt to claim a higher authority, religious or otherwise, and interject themselves as a better judge of that ultimately personal decision.
I think that most thinking adults have considered suicide at one time or another in their lives. Most reject the idea. Some don't.
But ultimately, the decision shoud rest with the individual. As for me, it boils down to something Schopenhauer said long ago: "Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment---a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer."
Circlometryâ„¢
when subjected to a rational utilitarian calculus, the overall utility of a society or a whole may be increased -- altruisitic suicide
emile durkhiem had a great writing on sucide, i would recommend it if you are interested in pursuing this line of thought
Isis
Hi. It sounds plausible, but there are some flaws. Any rational process of weighing the pros and cons of a situation dispassionately would rate suicide at the bottom of the list, not the top. Why? Because by any genuine logic, the option of terminating life (except in extremis) would factor as an unknown. Its benefits are incalculable and therefore classed either as a negative or neutral in any logical process. At best, suicide would be the last option behind simply waiting to see what happens next. Passivity trumps death in the logic spectrum.
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