Suicide isn’t all that difficult to condemn. It’s like murder. Nobody likes murder. Except it’s sad feels rather than angry feels because the person is killing themselves rather than the countless other people who deserve it far more. I mean some might say that all life is sacred, and all killing, the self or otherwise, is reprehensible. We’re going to ignore this because black and white morality is mind-numbingly dull. Suicide is at best seen as a crushing tragedy, and at worst as a selfish act ignoring the impact on those who care about the suicidee. But let’s look at some suicides that people look upon favourably, just to spice things up a bit.
Jesus Christ killed himself. I mean, not like Kurt Cobain-style which would have made for some much more interesting Christian iconography, but as an omniscient God, He is commonly believed to have been aware of His pending fate and lovingly allowed it to happen as a means of forgiving humanity our sins. He allowed His death when He could have easily prevented it. Sure, it was on some boring ol’ cross, but God sacrificed His son (which is to say, Himself). That’s suicide, baby.
Can you imagine this decorating beautiful stained glass windows? Tell me it’s not the better imagery.
Next, in his penultimate life before he became the prince Gautama, the Buddha came across a family of starving tigers. Judging by my theme so far, you can probably guess that the Buddha gave himself to this family of tigers to sustain them… as their food. The tigers ate the Buddha. That’s literally how the story goes. Though much more personal than Christ’s sacrifice, the idea of allowing death for the sake of others is a common theme in divinity.
Bringing things back down to earth, in the Jain tradition where non-harm is considered the paramount duty, it is not uncommon for the fundamentalists who have reached the final stage of their life to go out into the wilderness, and simply meditate until their death. There is life within even the vegetation, (and the water supply, as microscopic organisms have the same life within them as everything else), and Jains don’t harm life. This devotion to non-harm at the appropriate time comes to its obvious culmination: the least harm one can do is to allow oneself to die.
In Japan, Seppuku is the honourable way to die for samurai who supremely fucked up in life. For those who don’t know, Seppuku is ritualistically stabbing yourself in the belly, and disemboweling yourself. This form of suicide was considered the opposite of selfish, as it restored honour rather than removed it. Also in Japan, the Kamikaze pilots would kill themselves for the glory of Japan. Again, a great honour.
Japan stopped with Seppuku, and now we have anime. Go figure.
Soldiers throw themselves upon grenades to save their comrades-in-arms. Secret service get shot in the belly to protect the president. People shield others with their bodies during mass shootings. Suicide can be heroic. It can be divine. So why, when we say the word suicide, do we automatically assume negativity? Readers might want to suggest a difference between suicide and self-sacrifice, so let’s look at that distinction.
Self-sacrifice is a utilitarian measure. Utilitarianism is the moral system of creating the greatest good for the greatest number of people: maximize happiness, well-being, utility, whatever word you want to use, make the most of that thing. Though one life is snuffed out, the overall well-being of the rest of the world is increased. Jesus may have died, but now humanity is redeemed forever. That’s a pretty good trade. People dying for a good cause, self-sacrifice, creates better worlds. The good outweighs the bad. That is classic utilitarianism. That is trolley problem utilitarianism.
However, utilitarianism works both ways. If someone sacrifices themselves, and they possess great suffering, eliminating that suffering means that the world now has more well-being within it. The average goes up. If the suffering of the sacrificee outweighs the suffering of those who would be impacted by that sacrifice, utilitarianism would say that it is moral. There is no ethical difference between the two. Suicide and self-sacrifice are indistinguishable if the measurements come through. Boom. Ethics.
See kids? Suicide is great because everyone will finally respect you, they’ll all realize how poorly they treated you, and the world will be a better place without you because everyone will learn a valuable lesson.
Now, you might be saying, that’s dumb; if that’s ethics, ethics is dumb. And you’re right. Utilitarianism is a terrible ethical system, but what makes it so terrible? I’ll give you another example. If a rapist enjoys rape more than the person being raped doesn’t enjoy it, then it’s moral. That’s how rapists think, and that’s how rape happens. The person who decides how happiness, well-being, whatever, ought to be maximized is going to be biased. I kinda think that any potential victim of rape would never reach that same conclusion, and yet they don’t get consulted. If they did, it wouldn’t be rape, because that’s how consent works.
What this means is that if you get feedback from your friends and family about how they’d feel if you killed yourself, and they came back to you either ambivalent or in favour, then sure, go for it. In Canada, we see this most commonly in what is termed medically-assisted death. People with terminal illnesses are able to commit suicide because the suffering that they endure is greater than the suffering of the loss felt by their friends and family. Loved ones should be consulted, obviously, but the utilitarian premise with the caveat of consent holds firm.
See? There can be a moral suicide. Just gotta make sure you talk it out with your loved ones first.
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