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Many questions are never asked in these articles. Is suicide bad? Is it immoral? Is it a crime? Should it not be permitted? If it is wrong, immoral, and a crim

Many questions are never asked in these articles. Is suicide bad? Is it immoral? Is it a crime? Should it not be permitted? If it is wrong, immoral, and a crime, should people who attempt it be punished?

Declanomous 10y ago
Well, from what I recall from biomedical ethics, the majority of people who attempt suicide and fail do not attempt suicide again. This would suggest that for most people suicide is merely a phase they can pass through. Regardless, these questions are asked all of the time. A news article about a new feature on a social media site isn't an appropriate forum for discussing such a ridiculously complex topic as the ethics of suicide. The only way your comment could be less appropriate is if you were advocating for a discussion on the ethics of murder on an article about a murder suicide. Edit: I suggest checking out the article on suicide on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Encyclopedia as a whole is a great resource, and this article is no different: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/
- TruthAndDare 10y ago
  > This would suggest that for most people suicide is merely a phase they can pass through. Strictly speaking, I don't think that necessarily means that these people are better off surviving. One could imagine that they are in pain that is temporary, but severe enough that they are better off dieing immediately, even taking into account that they are missing out on the life that would otherwise have come after the pain. By making them stay alive, we are perhaps forcing them into the worse option.
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    Oh, I don't disagree. I personally believe that suicide can be a rational decision. However, I believe that it is not a rational decision with much greater frequency.
x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
I'm in the camp that suicide is a human right, and I get plenty of heat for having that opinion. People seem to feel entitled to the existence of other people, which I can't seem to understand.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  I'm sure the majority of the heat you receive is because your stance has absolutely no nuance to it. For instance, the majority of people who attempt suicide and live never attempt suicide again. Similarly, suicide mostly seems to be impulsive -- if access to a certain method of attempting suicide is reduced, the corresponding decrease in suicide attempts via that method is not reflected in a corresponding rise in suicide attempts via other methods. Lastly, suicide rarely occurs in the depths of depression. People who attempt to take their own life are much more likely to be heading into or out of a depressive episode. While these aren't the only reasons that we should attempt to prevent suicides, I feel they provide sufficient counter-evidence to your argument. I will say that I am in favor of physician-assisted suicide, and there is definitely a contingent of people who are hell-bent on killing themselves, but for the most part most people who are suicidal will later be thankful to be alive. If you'd like to know more, I suggest reading the article on suicide on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/ Edit: Section 3.4 (Libertarian Views and the Right to Suicide) responds to your criticism very directly[1] If you find that interesting (of if you still find yourself unable to sympathize with those who believe they should attempt to prevent suicides), I'd suggest taking a course on either biomedical ethics, or ethics in general. These topics have been debated for centuries at this point, and there are a number of very compelling arguments on both sides. [1] This position is open to at least two objections. First, it does not seem to follow from having a right to life that a person has a right to death, i.e., a right to take her own life. Because others are morally prohibited from killing me, it does not follow that anyone else, including myself, is permitted to kill me. This conclusion is made stronger if the right to life is inalienable, since in order for me to kill myself, I must first renounce my inalienable right to life, which I cannot do (Feinberg 1978). It is at least possible that no one has the right to determine the circumstances of a person's death! Furthermore, as with the property-based argument, the right to self-determination is presumably circumscribed by the possibility of harm to others.
gnashville 10y ago
Albert Camus added you as a friend.
- solotronics 10y ago
  Heisenberg simultaneously did and didn't add you as a friend.
Analemma_ 10y ago
Questions like this are appropriate when discussing voluntary euthanasia for terminal medical conditions (which I am in favor of, for the record). They are not at all relevant in cases like this; where Facebook is trying to aid detection and intervention in cases of mental illness when the suicidal person is (literally) not thinking properly. Nowhere in this discussion is there an implication that suicide is wrong, immoral, or a crime, or that the people should be punished; I don't understand why you're even bringing that up.
tajen 10y ago
Suicide is definitly bad by all standards set up by the living: It automatically revokes all insurance contracts including life insurance and it's heavily frowned upon in most religions and in most families. I find it gruesome. Revoking the right for someone to end their life is torture for some. It's not without reason that's what happens with prison: They keep you forcefully alive. It's also what happens when you're medically assisted and you can't go for euthanasia. It also happens when you're deep in the failure of life: The living will check on you so you don't commit suicide. There are anti-suicide barriers everywhere. There's pretty much no place to commit suicide anymore. And now facebook. Our civilization relies on removing the right of people from resigning from life. We want them to produce.
- ionised 10y ago
  > Suicide is definitly bad by all standards set up by the living. Not true. many societies have had the concept of ritual suicide as a matter of honour.
Razengan 10y ago
I'm not insinuating that this is what's happening, but, forcing people to stay alive so they can keep buying stuff may be the ultimate capitalist dystopia.

Declanomous 10y ago

Well, from what I recall from biomedical ethics, the majority of people who attempt suicide and fail do not attempt suicide again. This would suggest that for most people suicide is merely a phase they can pass through. Regardless, these questions are asked all of the time. A news article about a new feature on a social media site isn't an appropriate forum for discussing such a ridiculously complex topic as the ethics of suicide. The only way your comment could be less appropriate is if you were advocating for a discussion on the ethics of murder on an article about a murder suicide. Edit: I suggest checking out the article on suicide on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Encyclopedia as a whole is a great resource, and this article is no different: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/

TruthAndDare 10y ago
> This would suggest that for most people suicide is merely a phase they can pass through. Strictly speaking, I don't think that necessarily means that these people are better off surviving. One could imagine that they are in pain that is temporary, but severe enough that they are better off dieing immediately, even taking into account that they are missing out on the life that would otherwise have come after the pain. By making them stay alive, we are perhaps forcing them into the worse option.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  Oh, I don't disagree. I personally believe that suicide can be a rational decision. However, I believe that it is not a rational decision with much greater frequency.

x3n0ph3n3 10y ago

I'm in the camp that suicide is a human right, and I get plenty of heat for having that opinion. People seem to feel entitled to the existence of other people, which I can't seem to understand.

Declanomous 10y ago
I'm sure the majority of the heat you receive is because your stance has absolutely no nuance to it. For instance, the majority of people who attempt suicide and live never attempt suicide again. Similarly, suicide mostly seems to be impulsive -- if access to a certain method of attempting suicide is reduced, the corresponding decrease in suicide attempts via that method is not reflected in a corresponding rise in suicide attempts via other methods. Lastly, suicide rarely occurs in the depths of depression. People who attempt to take their own life are much more likely to be heading into or out of a depressive episode. While these aren't the only reasons that we should attempt to prevent suicides, I feel they provide sufficient counter-evidence to your argument. I will say that I am in favor of physician-assisted suicide, and there is definitely a contingent of people who are hell-bent on killing themselves, but for the most part most people who are suicidal will later be thankful to be alive. If you'd like to know more, I suggest reading the article on suicide on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/ Edit: Section 3.4 (Libertarian Views and the Right to Suicide) responds to your criticism very directly[1] If you find that interesting (of if you still find yourself unable to sympathize with those who believe they should attempt to prevent suicides), I'd suggest taking a course on either biomedical ethics, or ethics in general. These topics have been debated for centuries at this point, and there are a number of very compelling arguments on both sides. [1] This position is open to at least two objections. First, it does not seem to follow from having a right to life that a person has a right to death, i.e., a right to take her own life. Because others are morally prohibited from killing me, it does not follow that anyone else, including myself, is permitted to kill me. This conclusion is made stronger if the right to life is inalienable, since in order for me to kill myself, I must first renounce my inalienable right to life, which I cannot do (Feinberg 1978). It is at least possible that no one has the right to determine the circumstances of a person's death! Furthermore, as with the property-based argument, the right to self-determination is presumably circumscribed by the possibility of harm to others.

gnashville 10y ago

Albert Camus added you as a friend.

solotronics 10y ago
Heisenberg simultaneously did and didn't add you as a friend.

Analemma_ 10y ago

Questions like this are appropriate when discussing voluntary euthanasia for terminal medical conditions (which I am in favor of, for the record). They are not at all relevant in cases like this; where Facebook is trying to aid detection and intervention in cases of mental illness when the suicidal person is (literally) not thinking properly. Nowhere in this discussion is there an implication that suicide is wrong, immoral, or a crime, or that the people should be punished; I don't understand why you're even bringing that up.

tajen 10y ago

Suicide is definitly bad by all standards set up by the living: It automatically revokes all insurance contracts including life insurance and it's heavily frowned upon in most religions and in most families. I find it gruesome. Revoking the right for someone to end their life is torture for some. It's not without reason that's what happens with prison: They keep you forcefully alive. It's also what happens when you're medically assisted and you can't go for euthanasia. It also happens when you're deep in the failure of life: The living will check on you so you don't commit suicide. There are anti-suicide barriers everywhere. There's pretty much no place to commit suicide anymore. And now facebook. Our civilization relies on removing the right of people from resigning from life. We want them to produce.

ionised 10y ago
> Suicide is definitly bad by all standards set up by the living. Not true. many societies have had the concept of ritual suicide as a matter of honour.

Razengan 10y ago

I'm not insinuating that this is what's happening, but, forcing people to stay alive so they can keep buying stuff may be the ultimate capitalist dystopia.