Suicide was mentioned today in class as an example of a person's right to bodily autonomy. Most of the examples used were with people who are terminally ill, and we sort of dismissed cases where somebody is in some type hysterical psychological state which results in them being admitted to psychiatric care if they are discovered before they are successful. But, I think that there are some much more ambiguous cases in between those extremes.
Consider the case of a completely physically healthy 25 year old man who is no longer particularly interested in living. There isn't anything going wrong in his life, in fact he's generally quite happy, has job/friends, and activities that he enjoys participating in. Perhaps he's merely bored with life or feels as if he has already done everything that he wanted to do. Maybe he's really committed to existentialism. Is it possible for him to want to die and be mentally healthy (and thus capable rationally deciding that he wants to die)?
I'm not sure. At the very least, it seems as if being suicidal or having a disinterest in life in this way is essentially inherently categorized as depression or some other type of mental illness (but lets stipulate for the sake of this example that he does not demonstrate any of the other classic symptoms of depression such as hopelessness, diet changes, disinterest in activities once enjoyed, sleep issues, self-loathing, etc.). I think we categorize it in this way because its inconceivable most of the population that somebody would ever be healthy and happy, yet actually want to die. So, at least on terms of society's definition of mental illness, I would say that most would categorize him in this way and therefore view him as irrational.
Perhaps a more interesting question is whether or not we should. It seems wrong to decide that somebody is ill simply based on society's opinions about what is and is not normal, or common. I'm certain that if this were more common, we would not classify it as an illness. Consider that most people would think that a desire to commit suicide is completely acceptable if the person in question were a healthy, happy 100 year old man who had done everything he wanted to in life and wanted to die with dignity before dementia or severe health issues set in. The only difference is the norms about what constitutes a long enough life for us to believe that he had done everything he wanted to in life. I think that's because we can understand it, and perhaps that's an unreasonable basis for deciding which types of bodily autonomy are and aren't acceptable. Perhaps the component of mental illness is based on harm, but I'm not sure that everyone truly thinks that suicide is inherently harmful.
If you agree with my analysis, then the question now is how we should decide what it means to be rational or mentally healthy. I don't know the answer to that. On the other hand, perhaps the most compelling argument against my case is that there are many people who have been suicidal, and believed at the time that their decision to attempt suicide was rational, yet are relieved that others intervened before they were successful and live happy, fulfilling lives that they now very much want to continue living. For instance, those who have survived suicide attempts from jumping off the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge are relieved that they have a second chance at life. From this (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/13/jumpers) article: "Survivors often regret their decision in midair, if not before... He counted to ten again, then vaulted over... As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, 'I instantly realized that everything in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable - except for having just jumped.'" Kind of a dark testimony to the likely feelings of many who jumped yet were not so lucky. Perhaps then, it actually is essentially impossible (or at least, in a vast majority of cases) to be both mentally/physically healthy and rationally want to commit suicide. If so, it implies that we the extreme efforts that we put into preventing people from killing themselves (such as forcibly admitting them to psychiatric wards) is a justified violation of one's bodily autonomy.
I think this is an excellent analysis on the topic of rational suicide, but the question you offer at the end of how we should determine what it means to be rational or mentally healthy shouldn't fall on to society to determine this answer. By this I simply mean the choice to end one's life is 100% individualistic and no one is forcing this onto them except themselves. A person can check out to be completely healthy to a societal norm but to themselves they can see life as a struggle with no way to fix it as you described in your example with the bridge jumper seeing no solution to their problems. So, to answer your question what I believe is, suicide is not a topic that should be based on society's opinion but to the individual themselves. A person that is committing suicide needs to understand that their actions can have affects on others and should be made aware of this before taking that action of ending their lives. Whether the person is 25 years old and has two parents or 100 years old with children and grandchildren their actions affect someone somewhere.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the previous comment, I actually think society has a legitimate say in a person's suicide. A person simply having knowledge that his/her actions will affect others may not lead him/her to make a responsible decision with regard to suicide. Frequently, the government justifies violations of bodily autonomy on grounds of harm to the person whose bodily autonomy it is violating, and it justifies these violations even more frequently when the well-being of others is at stake. There are certain things that the government does not allow a person to do with his/her own body on account of the fact that these actions will harm others, and these restrictions often seem quite reasonable. For example, people in the United States are not legally allowed to drive on the left side of the road. They are not allowed to do this precisely because to do so would harm others. This could be viewed as a violation of a person's bodily autonomy, but it seems justified. Similarly, if a person has dependents who would be destitute without him/her, it seems justified for the government ( or some other societal body) to interfere in that person's suicide. In this way, the question of whether or not someone is rational or mentally healthy does seem to matter that much. If a person's suicide would be relevantly harmful to others (of course there would have to be some type of metric to determine what constitutes sufficient harm to others and this would be complicated to decide), he/she should not be allowed to do it regardless of his/her mental status.
ReplyDeleteI think the real question that needs to be addressed is to what extent does the government have an obligation to protect people from emotional harm? The reason people are not allowed to drive on the left side of the road is because to do so would endanger other people's lives, which is clearly protected by the laws. Emotional harm is a lot harder to define and measure and at the end of the day, the harm caused to others by suicide is generally emotional harm. I can see the argument that committing suicide and leaving a child without his or her parent is more than just emotional harm. That being said, there is a counterargument that a person who wants to die may or may not be in the correct state of mind to be caring for someone else.
DeleteI don't necessarily agree that suicide should be allowed or that there shouldn't be any government intervention to help those who are suicidal. Many people who are suicidal are not in a mentally sound state of mind and are making a rash decision in the heat of an intense moment of emotional pain. With that being said, I also cannot accept the argument that the government should have an interest in protecting society from the potential harm of someone who commits suicide. I think that goes far beyond the scope of their responsibilities. There are other actions that people take that can cause immense emotional harm that are not even considered to be regulated by the government. For example, once someone becomes an adult and are no longer a dependent of their parents, they have a right to walk away from them completely. This may emotionally destroy the parent, but it is a right any adult has. People first and foremost have a right to live their life the way they choose. If those actions infringe on another's rights, then the government should intervene. As far as I can tell, the right for a person to rationally choose when they wish to die does not infringe on any other person's rights.
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DeleteBut the issue is, can a person ever really rationally choose to die if they're healthy and young? You mentioned that people who are suicidal are often not in a sound mental state or making rational decisions, in which case we should prevent them from doing these things that they will likely regret. The issue is, how do we determine whether or not intervention is justified on the basis of somebody not being rational? Some might argue that it is inherently irrational, or not in one's own best interest, to want to die if they are neither old nor terminally ill. If that's the case, the state should always intervene - not on the grounds of harming others emotionally, but on the grounds of protecting somebody from their own 'mental illness.'
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