The question is, is it ethical to prohibit suicide, and the answer, is no, it isn't.
As a blanket prohibition I'd agree, but on a case by case I think there are situations where it's not only permissible but actually preferable.
Mental health workers, whenever they do so, usurp the inalienable prerogative of the individual to dispose of an existence which, even in its best moments, is a pointless, Sisyphean chore, a glorified endurance test.
Firstly, they can only usurp the individual's right to autonomy if the person is fit to make the judgement - whilst we are far from perfect at determining what constitutes mental impairment and what doesn't, we're at least aware that the concept is valid.
Secondly your depiction that life, even at its best moments, is a 'pointless Sisyphean chore' might be your take on life, but it's not mine and it's not that of a host of others. Just as we all have the right to make our choices, we have the right to determine what life 'means' for ourselves.
Strindberg was right when he said the only people comfortable in this world are swines.
None taken.
In the modern age this is especially true. How anyone can have anything other than a jaundiced view of the world, man, and human relations is beyond my powers of comprehension.
There are any number of things that are good and rewarding despite not being perfect - indeed, in some ways perhaps because they are not perfect. I value the relationships I have with people, in part, because they are hard, because they take work, because I'm not a natural fit with other people: succeeding there is an achievement, it's something to be proud of. The fact that it's beyond your comprehension is a) sad and b) not binding on the rest of us.
I mean, this may not please psychiatrists, the great pathologizers of the all too sane cynicism of some of us (which they call paranoia, which there is always at least a grain of truth in, and is often the product of a clearer vision and a greater sensitivity to the injustice most people are so deeply mired and complicit in that it is no wonder they dismiss us as paranoid), but human beings are really overrated, a product no doubt of the fact that it is only man himself that is able to evaluate the species.
Are they? People are capable of more than they collectively achieve, yes, but then I don't expect people to be perfect. If life, civilisation and people are failing to live up to your expectations why would you presume it's life, civilisation and people at fault and not your expectations?
When we want to deny people rights (especially fundamental ones like freedom) we'd better have damn good reasons for doing so, so in a fair ethical discussion the burden of argument so to speak lies with those denying rights, not those affirming them.
I'd agree with that, personally.
Freedom should only be limited by absolute necessity, i.e my freedom ends where yours begins and vice versa. If it cannot be shown that suicide is a breach of the rights of others then it clearly isn't wrong, which isn't to say that it's necessarily smart or rational.
Except that a) it can be shown that it infringes on other people's rights, to an extent, and that breach needs to be balanced against personal autonomy and b) it could be seen as a breach of the individual's right if it's a decision taken whilst not in their right mind. Obviously, as I've suggested, our grasp of what is or isn't a 'right' mind is in its infancy, and some people feel they're erring on the side of caution by preserving a life that will still have options later.
Given the fact that slavery has long been abolished what are we arguing about here really?
I think we're arguing, at least in part, that you're cheapening your argument by describing limitations on suicide as some sort of moral equivalent of slavery.
In a free, open society every person is the sole owner of his or her life and body so therefore it follows they can do whatever they damn well please with it, provided they do not endanger others or cause a public disturbance.
In a free and open society, though, no-one exists in isolation. Our actions have an impact on the people around us to a greater or lesser extent.
The myth of mental illness (quite mysterious diseases/disorders which do not have traceable biological features so seem to exist mainly in the subjective, socio-cultural realm - with possible exceptions such as schizophrenia) has too long been used to degrade people and rob them off their natural rights and I happen to think this is a bloody outrage.
I get where you're coming from. I don't think that the people who work in this field are typically 'inventing' conditions to justify their own existence (with the possible exception of the large pharmaceutical companies). They're acting with the best intentions of their 'patients', but the medicalisation of difference is a growing problem - I speak from personal experience on this. That does not obviate the reality that there are genuine mental illnesses out there that rob people of a 'normal' mentality and a conventionally informed choice; however, that doesn't intrinsically rob them of the right to self-determination.
You mentioned schizophrenia, and there are instances of people where we do not have a treatment that can help them; in such instances the potential 'cured' persona that we would consider capable of making an informed choice is a myth, it doesn't exist. Does that give us the right to disregard the wishes of the individual that IS there, the schizophrenic suffering the ravages of their own problems? That's a difficult call to make even if you know the specifics of their situation, to make a general blanket call is impossible. I think you have to take each of those cases on its merits, and we lack a legal framework at the moment that has the confidence in medical practitioners or the subtlety of the judiciary in the face of public perception of mental illness to open that box.
The lack of rationality of an action (in this case suicide) should not be a criterium for goverment intervention otherwise they'll be able to control the whole of society and a scenario à la 1984 or Brave New World isn't far off.
I think a duty of care from the government for those that - at least in principal - might not be able to make informed, rational choices is entirely justified. They express that duty of care through the guidance and laws around health provision. Any government, in principle, has the capacity to become 1984 or the Brave New World, being cautious about the laws around suicide isn't the tipping point on that.
That's if committing suicide under extreme mental duress is even irrational: surely if one suffers mentally or emotionally for years on end and there's no real cure or effective relief (Plath and Woolf come to mind) it's hard not to see these poor people's quality of life is below zero and it's pretty damn rational to want to end all that meaningless suffering.
I'd agree, and in that situation I'd personally advocate for someone's right to choose for themself, but we don't currently have that subtle a system, or that capable a system of psychiatric diagnosis, treatment or care.
If I were a cynic I might be inclined to belief the de facto suicide prohibition is more to the benefit of the mental health and pharmacological industry than to those they're supposed to help and heal (hard to do that if you don't even know the cause of the problem).
By and large I don't think that pharmaceutical industry is interested in problems it can't cure - it's more interested in getting people to consider variations in behaviour that they can influence as medical issues.
If psychiatrists and their ilk are so keen on rationality perhaps they can explain to us why they still haven't found any biological cause for these mental conditions or why they still don't know how their medications and talk therapies are supposed to work and why they so often don't work at all.
That's easy - the human brain is the single most complicated piece of equipment we have invented or discovered, by orders of magnitude, and our exploration of it is in its infancy.
The answer to the suicide problem is not more prevention (blaming the victim, if ever so subtely) but better, scientifically valid care which up to date is sadly lacking.
The answer to the issue of suicide, in part, is to stop looking for AN answer, and to recognise that it's a complex issue with multiple improvements to be made - acceptance of individual autonomy is one of them, I feel, but it's not the only one.
Make sure you can actually cure people of their mental illnesses and they'll flock to you for treatment (as they do to other medical specialties) and I'm confident (almost) no-one would not rather be relieved from their problem than die by their own hand which is a grim enterprise even in the best of circumstances and the great majority of suicides clearly do not die under the best of circumstances.
You seem to have this binary idea of mental illness, but brains don't work like that. All emotional activity happens on a range, and someone is only mentally ill when the extremity the reach starts to cause problems - and that varies from individual to individual. Some people are untrusting and suspicious, and that's fine, whereas others are untrusting and suspicious and that's diagnosed as paranoia not because of the degree to which they feel it, but because of the way that interacts with other elements of their personality and is expressed. It's exactly that complexity that makes medical - by which I'm presuming from the phrasing that you mean drug treatments - so difficult. More effective in many cases are therapeutic treatment regimes, but those are subtle and expensive with low profit margins and little brand opportunity.
O.
