Joseph Warren

Mr. Morgan

ERH 207W-03

10/21/15

Can suicide ever be justified?

Depression and hurt, anger and boredom, martyrdom and revenge. All of these have been cited as causes of self-destruction throughout the ages. Some however, particularly martyrdom, are viewed more kindly by history. The nasty term of suicide hardly seems applicable to those whom willingly die by their own volition for others. In other cases, suicide is viewed as a cowardly act, perpetrated by those who are simply too weak to play the hand that life dealt them, and fold instead. Why is that? Is it possible that suicide could be justified? Do humans owe it to themselves, to god, or to others to continue to live? Is it unacceptable in every situation to take your own life? Surely not. If there is an exception made for martyrdom, then certainly there must be some other ways in which that it’s acceptable to commit suicide.

Suicide is a tricky thing to define. It cannot be just willful self-killing, because then surely an unhealthy lifestyle, like smoking a pack a day, which will catch up to you eventually, could be construed as suicide. The person knew the consequences of their actions, and continued anyway, but this obviously isn’t suicide. A more curious example is martyrdom. When someone willfully dies for others, it doesn’t seem to warrant the term of suicide. This is perhaps because death isn’t the object of the individuals self-killing, but rather the saving of others, or the advancement of some higher cause. So a willful self-killing, where death or the absence of life and pain that comes from death, seems to be a decent definition of suicide, and when suicide is mentioned in this essay, that’s what will be implied.

There are philosophers, especially Christian ones, who say that suicide is always wrong.