Via Mindhacks, I found a piece at Frontier Psychiatrist titled Examination of the Concept of Rational Suicide. Hoping for a Gary Becker-esque analysis of the sort found here, I checked it out. However, the author seemed averse to accepting the possibility of such a thing. The stipulated requirements are that “the person in question must have an unremittingly hopeless condition, should make their decision as a free choice and have engaged in a sound decision making process, including assessment by a mental health professional”. His definition of “rational” includes that it “‘makes sense’ to others”. He says “the concepts of autonomy, utility and rationality alone are inadequate arguments for the acceptance of rational suicide as none are ever identifiable in so pure a form as to be considered a philosophical trump card”. I have a problem with that. He is seeking an imaginary purity that can never be attained and if applied to any other decision would deny us our autonomy. What I see is the concept of “false consciousness”, but going without the label. The proponents of that idea were Marxists attempting to explain why Marx’s prediction of capitalism producing class consciousness among the proletariat had not panned out. They disagreed with the attitudes people had and so labeled them “false”. This permitted them to claim they were upholding the traditional liberal ideal of autonomy while denying it in the case where they didn’t like it. If I wanted to reject his decision to continue living I could easily claim he had not thought rationally about it or been unduly influenced by the insidious “culture of life”.
He continues: “We must also recognize that in seeking a rational suicide, the components that inform this decision are culturally determined, thereby introducing considerable subjectivity and possible external disagreement. Furthermore if the decision to end one’s life is informed by persistent suffering, then it is unlikely to be made on entirely non-emotional grounds and likely to be subject to cognitive distortions”. Galbraith similarly argued that capitalism does not satisfy our desires but creates them through advertising. Hayek replied that nearly all but the most basic desires (eating, sleeping, etc. and even then not including the varieties of going about it) are the result of culture. If not for culture we would neither seek Shakespeare nor psychotherapy! And as we do not exist in a vacuum but are quite social creatures, the hunt for “external” influence will always end successfully. Finally, as one of the areas where I agree with the Austrians, preferences are inherently subjective and it is silly to try to show that the “objective” answer to such questions is possible.
He furthermore states that “If the decision is to be truly informed this should involve gaining all possible facts and imagining all consequences”. Well, then, so much for hoping to be “truly informed”. Is there EVER a case where have all possible facts and have deduced all possible consequences? He adds “since the experience of being dead is entirely unknown it is questionable whether it is possible to adequately foresee the outcome of one’s actions in this regard”. But that doesn’t introduce any asymmetry. It could be that being dead is so great that nobody comes back to say how great it is, that’s just how great it is. A rational utilitarian would simply come up with an estimated utility of being dead, but the approach here seems to be something like Pascal’s Wager where it must be unimaginably bad and therefore close off the possibility of being a good choice.
He concludes “These concerns indicate that it may be difficult to satisfactorily reach a conclusion that rational suicide is possible”. I respond that it is hard to satisfactorily reach a conclusion that ANY action is rational, including the decision NOT to commit suicide, when you engage in motivated skepticism and apply such double standards.
This post’s title brought to you by a disappointing Early Man song. And speaking of disappointing, commenter Isak has removed his blog, Nonsense on Stilts, because it kept focusing his mind on depressing topics.
June 1, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Life is definitely a lethal disease but since it is sexually transmitted may be we should stop sex?
June 1, 2009 at 11:47 pm
I believe some Shakers and gnostics advocated just that. Contemporary antinatalists seem to prefer vasectomies and hysterectomies.
June 2, 2009 at 12:18 am
this sort of thing is common. concede the point but try to put the opposing side’s winning position in a straight jacket so that their victory is Pyrrhic.
June 2, 2009 at 8:56 am
[...] Life is a disease so no bullshit please [...]
June 2, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Immediate conclusion: author is an idiot and should be ignored.
‘Rational’ has a well-defined formal meaning that is widely recognized, and that’s not what the word signifies.
June 2, 2009 at 7:10 pm
To be fair, his full definition is “characterized by reason or [...]“, but that’s a tad circular and I thought the bit about making sense to others was irrelevant.
June 2, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I’d wondered what happened to N-o-S. A shame.
June 3, 2009 at 4:30 am
Thank you for taking the time to comment on my piece. Your raise some interesting points with which I have some sympathy. My posting is actually meant to be a discussion of both sides of the argument, although I would concede that it comes across as one sided.
I chose to discuss the arguments surrounding this issue by first attempting a definition of ‘rational’ and then seeing whether an act of suicide can qualify for this. Despite clearly feeling that my definition of ‘rational’ to be incorrect I note that you do not propose your own definition, contenting yourself simply with picking holes in mine. How is it possible to make an assertion that suicide can be rational without being clear about what rationality is?
I’m not actually saying that I disagree with people deciding their own fate, and indeed an ‘understandable’ suicide is mentioned, only that a suicide will struggle to meet the criteria of being ‘rational’.
Melendwyr – I’d be interested in hearing of the ‘well defined definition’ of ‘rational’. Whose would that be? It is in fact a word with no exact meaning, and the best we can do is to give this more or less vague term a degree of precision by locating it within a set of terms which constitute the vocabulary of a scientific or philosophical theory. I note again that you do not proffer the definition of which you speak. And just because you’re anonymous doesn’t make it clever to be rude. FP
June 3, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I did not set out to prove the rationality of suicide, I was merely poking holes in your argument. I often do that and don’t feel it’s incumbent upon me to go beyond making a critique.
My definition of rational would be something like not violating any rules of logic in reasoning, making systematically wrong predictions and failing to update properly on relevant evidence. In order to evaluate decisions which are inherently subjective we could adopt the economic concept of expected utility (though I’m sure Austrians would object).
June 5, 2009 at 4:46 am
Sure, and it’s informative to point out the weaknesses in someone else’s arguments but without presenting your own alternative, especially in matters of philosophy, your argument is only half made.
June 5, 2009 at 12:56 pm
No, the argument is that your argument is invalid. Errors aren’t “weaknesses” – a vessel can have weak places but not be unusable, but an argument either holds or it does not. Yours doesn’t.
As TGGP’s argument addresses the validity of yours, all he need do is support his contention – which he has done more than adequately. He doesn’t need to forward any claims about the topic of your argument at all.
June 5, 2009 at 12:53 pm
It has a number of exact meanings, the appropriate one determined by context and usage. See here.
You are a sophist and a fool.
July 1, 2009 at 6:14 am
The link above ‘here’ is empty link. Please re-post.
June 3, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I have never heard “understandable to others” as a criterion for rationality. You don’t say where you’re getting your definition.
The usual economic definition of “rational” means maximizing self-interest. We can easily open that up to include one’s values and altruistic aims – e.g., maximizing the pursuit of one’s values. The requirement that a decision be understandable to others in order to be rational is unnecessary.
It is difficult for non-suicidal people to understand, but it is entirely possible for life to be so unpleasant that the expected value of one’s life (to oneself, at least) is negative. That is, by living an extra day, you suffer extensively but gain nothing, and given the information at your disposal, this is likely to continue indefinitely. It is hardly necessary to have a terminal illness or extreme physical suffering for this to be the case.
People generally want to claim that suicide must be the act of an irrational person because that justifies paternalistic intervention (sometimes by horrific methods, sometimes by merely awful methods) to force people to stay alive. But these same standards of “rationality” are rarely applied to other decisions, however harmful, permanent, or emotion-clouded they may be.
I have argued that, for many of us who are suicidal, we are irrational in continuing to live, because it is tempting to take into account only near-term suffering and not whole-life suffering in the decision.
June 5, 2009 at 3:12 am
Well, if something is ‘rational’ it presumably would be a decision reached by reasoning. Such reasoning could be presented to others and if the reasoning is logical it would be understandable to them.
June 5, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Yes – the problem is the jump from “the logical process must be understandable to other rational beings to be rational” to “the values underlying the decision must be understandable by others to be rational.”
This is why I include the requirement in my model of rational suicide that the would-be suicide be able to articulate a non-delusional reason for wanting to die (and, as long as it’s non-delusional, the adequacy of the reason would not be inquired into) – in addition to a long-standing, sincere desire to die and an understanding of the nature of death. That’s certainly more than is required for capacity to contract.
June 5, 2009 at 9:47 pm
if the reasoning is logical it would be understandable to them.
I disagree. There are a great many things not understood. Haven’t you ever given a logical explanation that wasn’t understood by your audience? And if people aren’t inclined to understand, you can only bring that horse to water.
July 15, 2009 at 4:06 pm
[...] a post about rational suicide a few weeks ago which attracted a lot of interest, and even spawned a post on another site dedicated to debunking my viewpoint. This issue and that of physician assisted suicide is rarely [...]