Rational Suicide

[Saint Grimm]

Depend on beliefs and other possible denominators it is 100% rational.

Samurais used to kill themselves if bested in a battle. If a samurai were to lose his honor, even outside of battle, it was his duty as a samurai to end his own life.

I once had a friend who was disgusted by the world. he was perfectly sane. but all the greed and un-caring in the world made him say it wasnt a world he wanted to live in. The government is corrupted, big businesses control everything and honor and respect are a thing of the past. I do agree it is disgusting that your average man has no honor or respect. He chose to end his own life, I chose to sit back and watch the world destroy itself. But then again human nature (violence, hate, bloodshed, etc) is what makes life worth living to me, while it made life unlivable for him, so yes, I am sad to have lost a friend, but I would prefer he live his life how he wants, than wish a fate he hated upon him, and the way he wanted to live a life in this cesspool of a world, was in the ground.

But to clearify what I said before, yes the violence in the world is amusing to me, as well as the hate for one another. But these are not reasons to act disrespectful or unhonorable. To be violent towards another man, it should be done in an honorable fashion, not with a gun to the back of another mans head in a dark ally because your just a little short on change...

 

[Apith]

Holy; wow, you are both arrogant and ignorant. Going off the idea that someone has it worse than me, I can't be upset is the same as going someone is happier than me, I can't be happy.

1st world problems are very different from 3rd world problems, and I won't argue that. I've been to a multitude of 3rd world countries, and I've experienced it. Quite frankly, you play the hand you are dealt.

There are a variety of circumstances that take place in first world countries that can make someone's life severely harder. There are a variety of disorders, things that cause a constant feelings of pain, worry, irritability, anger, suicidal thoughts, depression, everything. Pain you can't possibly imagine, and going off your post you have never have experienced.

You would not want them on the street with you? I am genuinely pissed off. Fuck You. Do you think everyone know's what everyone else is going through? Just because someone isn't happy with what they're experiencing doesn't make them a nice person, a normal person. People who'm you'd never expect to be could very well be suicidal. People don't generally tell people they're suicidal, definitely if they truly are. Not counting it's a point in life that you can push past, and if you can; it'll make you hell-of-a-lot stronger.

You're a fucking idiot. I mean genuinely, do you honestly think the only reason someone off's themselves is due to being bullied, or having their feelings hurt? Get out of your bedroom, go out into the world, and maybe, just maybe, open your damn eyes.

Lastly, there's a difference between sharing an opinion and being out-right disrespectful. Don't generalize; nor assume things about people, ever.

Not sure why you've gone ahead and bashed him for giving his opinion. You forgot to include in your quote what he wrote:

Rational to the person committing suicide? Sure
Rational to the observers/outside? Probably not

You're attacking him for his opinion, which is pretty much people do when they find out someone wants to end their life.

This topic is broad, and anything that would point in any direction to a good answer would have a lot of explaining to do, and cons that some may think outweighs the pros. An example is he doesn't have respect for anyone that commits suicide in 1st world countries. Sure, you can argue that how people in third world countries were raised with less, and expect less. Not where you expect more and end up at rock bottom, I am talking about 1st world countries. This is how I view it, it hurts more when people are given something and continue to get while they are raised and everything just go bad. Even if it isn't as bad as what 3rd world countries experience, the drop for the 3rd country people wouldn't be that big as they grew up with nothing and have nothing to lose, only something to gain.

You're a fucking idiot. I mean genuinely, do you honestly think the only reason someone off's themselves is due to being bullied, or having their feelings hurt? Get out of your bedroom, go out into the world, and maybe, just maybe, open your damn eyes.

This is most of the reason on the news. And I'm sure he hasn't thought of something like a billionaire who had it all for years, goes to 0 and ends up living in the street with some painful, serious illness where his family abandons him. At that point, after trying, I'd say it would be a rational suicide if others decided to put themselves in his shoes. Whether he was a good or bad guy, it cannot and shouldn't be a factor in people's opinion whether suicide would be rational or not for him. But the drop in his lifestyle, and living a painful life should be an example of a rational suicide that I believe most would agree with.

Basically I believe that there's a point where suicide is rational, which is what this thread is about. Another quick example is having a few days to live, you decide to live it out in agony, wanting to die the whole time, then get told you have another month to live. Another month to live with all the pain, after you and everyone else who cared about you were ready. Nobody who's opinion that matters to the person dying could really describe it as irrational suicide from there. It only becomes irrational when details are left out, when the untold is never told. This is where everyone outside becomes the judge of this, without knowing everything. Then there's the cases where people do actually suicide because of simple things that can be fixed.

 

[tMoon]

Not sure why you've gone ahead and bashed him for giving his opinion. You forgot to include in your quote what he wrote:

You're attacking him for his opinion, which is pretty much people do when they find out someone wants to end their life.

There's a difference between giving an opinion and being out-right disrespectful and going as far as saying he "wouldn't want to be on the same street" as someone who is/who has been suicidal, or the fact that he has zero sympathy for someone who has taken their own life.

Quite frankly if you don't respect someone as a human being, you don't deserve to be on the same street as them.

Probably left it out when I took the pictures out, idk wasn't on purpose.

This is most of the reason on the news.

Research shows that risk factors for suicide include:
depression and other mental disorders, or a substance-abuse disorder (often in combination with other mental disorders). More than 90 percent of people who die by suicide have these risk factors.
source: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml

Doesn't change the fact that there are multiple factors that can push someone to that edge. Again, he needs to open his eyes and not be so ignorant.

 

[MohtasaUnique]

The only "rational" suicide decision I could think of would involve saving one or more lives, ie. jumping in front of a bullet or onto a grenade.

This wouldn't be considered suicide, since suicide is strictly defined as "killing oneself", which implicitly suggests it'd by your own hand. You didn't pull the trigger or throw the grenade, so technically it's murder (or man slaughter, depending on the intent) of their part if you step in front of a bullet or shield a grenade. But it makes sense to say "ie. shooting yourself" instead, as an example.

I want to agree with the logic quoted above, in theory it makes sense. However, if you're looking at a current situation, you could never know your being alive will directly cause the death of others. No one can see the future. It could be something you see in retrospect, but then killing yourself won't fix it after the fact. Also, a HUGE percentage of suicidal humans are insignificant, so it's safe to say those people wouldn't be saving anyone to kill themselves. Not everyone's suicide story is a heoric tale of martyrdom for the good of the people.. or ANYONE'S for that matter, if we're honest... I could probably accurately say over 90% of suicides are because one feels trapped, depressed, or are clinically ill, not because they're faced with a decision to remove themselves for the good of many.


With that, I don't think there is any rational excuse for wanting to end your life.

 

[Marek]

I believe that suicide can be entirely rational although it usually is not. Most suicidal decisions are made in the heat of the moment and during small phases of life with problems that will become insignificant in time. However though, I believe that anyone has the right to kill them self and I will not waste the time evaluating others permanent decisions of this nature to decide whether or not they were wrong as life and death are much more complicated issues than an answer of "right" or "wrong" can afford.

This wouldn't be considered suicide, since suicide is strictly defined as "killing oneself", which implicitly suggests it'd by your own hand. You didn't pull the trigger or throw the grenade, so technically it's murder.

I disagree, I believe that by making the conscious decision to jump in front of the bullet or grenade you are killing yourself. You are standing in a place perfectly safe of harm and decide to take on the inevitable harm for a reason, you making the choice to move in harms way IS the action that kills you as the bullet would be harmless without your decision. Just as a rope does not kill you when you hang yourself, you decide to place yourself in a way that the rope has the ability to kill you. This also goes further into what I believe rational suicide is and where it exists.

 

[djweasel]

Honestly lets all just agree suicide isn't really rational but in some cases it may seem that way.

 

[Possibilities]

The way I see it, there are two types of suicide.

Selfless suicide, and selfish suicide.

A selfless suicide can be brought upon someone by more than just an attempt to save a life, or prevent a catastrophe, etc. People don't seem to realize that many times, a suicide is an act of selfLESSness, and not selfISHness. More often than not, this type of suicide comes from a person who has either done something to hurt those closest to him/her, usually their immediate family, and/or spouse, to the point in which he or she loses their respect, trust, and sometimes the "pre-suicidal" person feels as though the people who they have hurt no longer even love them, and it gets them to the point where they feel as though, since even the people who once cared so much about them no longer wish to have anything to do with them, why even burden them by living any longer? It usually seems that it's the suicidal person's way of washing clean all of the wrong doings they've done to end up in the position, and it's brought on by the thought that nobody wants them around, so they decide to go away and ensure they can never come back. Often that thought comes from psychological self-harm, due to past actions which led to the current point, as previously described.

A selfish suicide is much easier to explain - it stems from a problem between the suicidal person, and either a person, or a small group of people, usually unrelated to the suicidal person, and they use suicide as an escape, instead of trying other methods to avoid their issue, and often, they do not even attempt to resolve the issue by any means other than taking their own life.

I believe a selfless suicide can be considered rational, only from a scientific aspect, because of the psychological trauma one can cause to themselves by a scenario similar to the one described under the "selflessness" category, and sometimes it builds too quickly for the victim to even have had a chance to consider therapeutic treatment, because when under excessive amounts of stress, your brain really can stop functioning in a controllable manner, which explains why sometimes murderers say "I did this...and this...and then everything went black...and when I came back to, dead body." (essentially, obviously shorthanded..), but the same can be said for a suicide, and that's the only suicide victims I feel pity for.

A selfish suicide, however, is irrational, and honestly, the victim usually has several opportunities to arrange to at least ATTEMPT to resolve their problem(s), and just let them continue to build, instead. These victims tend to let it happen to them, and then commit suicide, when they even STILL had options left, down to their very last breath, which is idiotic, on top of irrational, in my opinion.

 

[Endrit007]

If they don't have a good reason for it, nope not rational ^^

 

[Just Sayin']

"Should an action be judged on its outcome or its intent?"

some people simply don't want to live & there's little that anyone can do about that.
"Based on or in accordance with reason or logic"
I believe ending your life due to permanant / agonising pain is rational. It out weighs living.

 

[Hope1]

I feel that when people decide to take the easy way with suicide, it's apart of their destiny or the cycle of life. Some people aren't happy, haven't experienced certain things in life, or were severely hurt and feel that no one wants them. Your thought on healthy people committing suicide has a flaw. If their truly healthy mentally (and physically), why would they have the thought of killing themselves?

 

[Possibilities]

If they don't have a good reason for it, nope not rational ^^

"A good reason" is no way to determine the taking of one's life.

Example:

Person A loves his mother and has always been treated fairly by her, with love and compassion, in which he returns the favor and feelings.

Person B despises his mother, and feels as though she neglected him, because she was always too busy with work, and putting food on the table. Due to stress, she yelled at him, but never physically disciplined him. He runs away, and his mother does all she can to find him and get another chance to be more involved with her son, and he continues to avoid going back to her.


Person A hears news of his mother's death and becomes distraught, his emotions take over, causing him to be overwhelmed with sadness and the desire to be alone.

Person B hears news of his mother's death, and is apathetic toward the situation, shrugs it off, and continues on about his daily routine.


In the eyes of Person A, it may not seem Person B has a "good reason" to despise his mother, as she cared for him as best she could, until he ran away from her. However, in Person B's eyes, it's a perfectly "good reason".

Your answer is too simplistic and does not provide a good enough backbone to define what is rational and irrational - it's a one-sided argument to say, "oh no it wasn't for a good reason or a good cause!", because the words "good" and "bad" are all based on individual moral premises.

 

[Him]

Someone should have the right to do whatever they want, sometimes life gets unbearable.

 

[ilovegold69]

Before you make any subjective statement about whether you should condone rational suicide you should let this sit around in your head for a little.

Personally I don't know whether or not you can say anyone can rationally make that decision but if at any point in a person's life they value their life less than the people around them value said person's life, is it morally justifiable to stop them from abandoning it?

In other words you are essentially making that person live a life they don't want to which may sound like the most basic point you can make in this argument but it really is the only one that resonates with me.

 

[Weapon]

Well if someone thinks that being dead is better than being alive, in a world full of cons and goods and bads, why would you want to leave? But if someone decides being out of this world is better than being in this world then let them do there thing.

 

[Meeder1]

It can be completely acceptable. Those looking on from an outside view have no possible way of experiencing the emotions or pain that the suicidal party is going through. Before anyone bothers saying its a selfish decision, who are you to decide what I should do with my life? If I'm in the most excruciating pain known to man (Cluster Headches), why should I not be able to end that suffering?

The same applies to any other situation if you can agree that it is acceptable in that one, as you cannot imagine the pain of others, you are a completely difference person. To argue that people need to just move on with life, and that they would get over aforementioned issues is not generally true. Many suicidal people have attempted it many times before, as suicide generally fails. There are 25 suicide attempts for every successful one (Here). This indicates the depression, pain, or whatever other issues that are plaguing the party are chronic, and not showing any signs of diminishing.

Suicide isn't often an impulsive act, it is thoroughly thought out, and if the user goes as far as that they are in the right to do as they please with their own body. Free will is what the world should be based on, you're opinion on what someone else does doesn't matter in this situation, because its not YOUR life.

 

[Him]

Life is tough but it get s better, i contemplated suicide seriously in 9th grade and was in that moment where i realize in less then 3 seconds my problems will go away. It's not worth it. Life gets better, the tough moments seem like theyll last forever but they won't. My friends mom committed suicide by jumping off a hotel building. It truly is shocking and sad the people around you usually are heart broken and it isn't worth it. I wish i would've been able to talk her out of it but sadly i was very young when she did it. Life changes.

 

Suicide is such a selfish decision..

Selfish how?

For most of us who live in the 1st world countries or countries that are at peace, there is no reason for suicide.

Just because someone isn't starving and homless, or living amongst warring communities, doesn't mean they can't be depressed or suicidal. Bereavement, bullying, loneliness, failing something and not being able to deal with it, arguing with people, falling out with family, struggling with money, not being able to come to terms with something you've done, terminal illness.. just to name a couple of contributing factors to a depressed or suicidal state.

Suicide serves more as a method of natural selection to rid society of the weak.

Why? I'm pretty sure there's not a decision as brave. It's not just a case of oh I feel crap today, I'll pop a few pills or blow my brains out. It's usually years of mental and emotional torment that lead to a suicide - which I gather, much like you were pointing out that 'those' people don't understand first world problems, you don't understand.

As messed up as it sounds, you need to detach emotions from the statement and think about it. If a person is nuts enough to attempt to kill him or herself then I would not want that person roaming around in society.

I think you'd find the world would be a much less populated place if everyone who'd ever attempted suicide or thought about it/planned it, me included, were to cease to exist. Depression and suicidal thoughts affect a lot more people than you might think.. they could be friends, family members.. but you wouldn't know they were thinking those things, because they don't appear depressed or suicidal on the outside.

• Nearly 80,000 children and young people suffer from severe depression (5).
• Over 8,000 children aged under 10 years old suffer from severe depression (6).
• The number of young people aged 15-16 with depression nearly doubled between the 1980s and the 2000s (9).
• The proportion of young people aged 15-16 with a conduct disorder more than doubled between 1974 and 1999 (10).

http://www.youngminds.org.uk/training_services/policy/mental_health_statistics

And that's just children.

I don't have a drop of respect for people who commit suicide (in first world countries) because they took the easy way out. People have dealt with a lot worse then they have yet they did not kill themselves. One of the most selfish things you can do. Instead of dedicating your life to prevent others from doing it, you just let the cycle continue. :sick:

Do you think if everyone who turned up to the doctor's surgery and complained of a sore something or other, would be turned away with "People have dealt with a lot worse then they have yet they did not need medication, have some respect for the third world countries." No, they wouldn't, because that just doesn't work.

So why should, someone who chooses to commit suicide be branded as weak or ignorant when you yourself are ignorant to the causes of a suicide.

Atleast in other countries suicide is for greater reasons then being bullied or having your feelings hurt.

It's people that are oblivious to what sort of mental and emotional torture it takes to get to a state where you're depressed and suicidal that make it so hard for people to get help.

Why is it frowned upon to be suicidal? A person cannot help how they naturally feel. If people are constantly bullying someone (as an example) and that same person has a troubled home and no friends, in their minds; what else can they do?

It's fucking horrible that you can say that someone is weak for being suicidal. I say people are weak for being so closed minded and unhelpful towards people who need help. Living in a self-absorbed bubble and having the "man up" attitude is why so many people bottle up inside and end up taking it out on themselves.


Rant over.

 

[Elena]

Suicide is selfish if you have people that care about you because, even though you may be out of whatever you can't handle the people who care about you still have to deal with you being gone. @roary

 

Suicide is selfish if you have people that care about you because, even though you may be out of whatever you can't handle the people who care about you still have to deal with you being gone. @roary

It isn't selfish, it's selfish to not care about those who need help. If people cared and showed interest in people's mental health then nobody would get to that point. It isn't selfish and nobody should be ashamed for feeling suicidal.

A synonym of selfish is self-centred, and I think you can agree that someone with suicidal thoughts is far from self-centred.

It's selfish to expect someone to live in emotional and mental torture when you don't bat an eyelid at them usually.

 

[Finally07]

It isn't selfish, it's selfish to not care about those who need help. If people cared and showed interest in people's mental health then nobody would get to that point.

I agree with about everything you wrote her, but you can't make this generalization. I've fought for someone, 24/7, along with a lot of other people, but some things we can't understand. It was too deep, we couldn't reach it. And despite all the attention and care we gave her, she coulnd't bear living in this world. I don't resent her anything, it was her decision and I respect it. But you can't say that interest and care can solve all mental problems, because that simply is untrue.