Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Suicide as a Mistake: A Bizarre Idea from Two Philosophers


October 30, 2013

Suicide as a Mistake: A Bizarre Idea from Two Philosophers

 David Lester
 
            I’ve never thought that philosophers or philosophy had much to contribute to understanding suicide ever since I read what philosophers had to say about the death by suicide of Socrates (Lester, 2004). (Peggy Battin is an exception, of course!) I recently read an article in a philosophy journal that confirmed my opinion. Pilpel and Amsel (2011) proposed that a decision to die by suicide can be morally permissible and rational and yet be a mistake. This comment argues that their reasoning behind this is incorrect.

            Pilpel and Amsel discuss briefly the concepts of rationality and morality, for which various authors have proposed clear criteria. In arguing that a suicide can be a mistake, Pilpel and Amsel introduce a construct that they never define. (They say that they leave this for a later article.) However, from their article, we can decipher some clues as to what they mean by a mistake. They present a case, more about which later, and say that they “feel strongly that she is throwing her life away” (p. 116). Clearly, this phrase does not propose criteria for making a mistake in general, since most of our mistakes do not involve life and death decisions, but in the present context, throwing one’s life away is considered by Pilpel and Amsel to be a mistake. Pilpel and Amsel also characterize the reasoning of their hypothetical case of suicide as odd and absurd and as a blunder, again terms for which they propose no definition.

            Rather than proposing a new philosophical (or psychological) construct, Pilpel and Amsel seem merely to have given their subjective opinion of what is a good decision or a bad decision. For Pilpel and Amsel, choosing to die by suicide, even in a way that is meets the criteria for rationality and morality, is a bad decision. For Pilpel and Amsel, life is precious.

            To bolster their argument, Pilpel and Amsel present a hypothetical case. I remember once being scolded by a priest when I argued against the existence of Heaven by proposing my version of it (in which people lounged around in deck-chairs sipping ambrosia). Setting up a straw man, or in the present case a straw woman, is not a good way of arguing for a proposition for, even if hypothetical cases are of interest to philosophers, they are of minimal interest to those of us who are psychologists who study real suicides.


            The hypothetical woman described by Pilpel and Amsel is thinking rationally, and her suicide does not violate her moral principles, according to Pilpel and Amsel. Her motivation for suicide is that she has achieved all she set out to do, and now her life will be a steady decline. She expects to experience more frustration as she ages and less satisfaction. She decides to die at this point, a high point in her life.

            Although they are not clear on this point, Pilpel and Amsel do seem to value life. The question they fail to address is the criteria for a to-be-valued life. Socrates threw his life away. He could have proposed exile as his punishment, and his request would have been granted. Did his age make his choice to die by suicide (ordered by the court) less of a mistake? Yukio Mishima chose to die by suicide (seppuku) at his peak (creative and physical), but did his goal of political change (overthrowing the government) make his choice of throwing his life away less of a mistake.

            Many people have self-immolated to protest the government. Thich Quang Duc immolated himself in Vietnam in 1963 to protest the government’s oppression of Buddhists, and his death lives on in our memory. His death remains famous 50 years later. A mistake or not? Craig and Joan died by car exhaust poisoning in New Jersey in 1969 to protest the American involvement in Vietnam (Asinof, 1971), but readers of this essay will most likely not have heard of them. A mistake or not? Were inmates of Auschwitz who chose suicide throwing their lives away when many survived and gave witness to the horrors?

            I doubt that the construct of a mistake is a useful construct, and Pilpel and Amsel did little to convince us of its value,

References

Asinof, E. (1971). Craig and Joan. New York: Viking.
Lester, D. (2004). Thinking about suicide. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science.
Pilpel, A., & Amsel, L. (2011). What is wrong with rational suicide. Philosophia, 39, 111-123.

 

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