What's So Morally Wrong With Suicide?

[Skwim]

According to a Gallup poll done about a year ago on the moral acceptability of certain practices, 82% of Americans find suicide to be morally unacceptable and 18% find it acceptable.

This is a huge difference, and one I would attribute to the influence of Christian thinking if I could find a Biblical passage that condemns it, but I can't. So, is this more of a secular position? If it is, what are the secular reasons for scorning suicide?


.

 

[Curious George]

According to a Gallup poll done about a year ago on the moral acceptability of certain practices, 82% of Americans find suicide to be morally unacceptable and 18% find it acceptable.

This is a huge difference, and one I would attribute to the influence of Christian thinking if I could find a Biblical passage that condemns it, but I can't. So, is this more of a secular position? If it is, what are the secular reasons for scorning suicide?


.

My guess would be that while people think taking a little time for yourself is ok, taking the rest of time for yourself is too selfish.

I see nothing wrong or unacceptable with suicide. So, I might not be the one to give the best answer.

 

[Axe Elf]

Anyone with any kind of a moral compass would find it impossible to live with themselves after committing suicide.

 

[sun rise]

There's something wrong with those opinions. The vast gap between opinion and action is given by the ranking of extramarital affairs. I suspect many people are answering with what they perceive to be the expected answer rather than true beliefs that lead to action.

 

[sun rise]

Anyone with any kind of a moral compass would find it impossible to live with themselves after committing suicide.

Outside of going to the astral plane, realizing that they failed to fulfill the mission of a life cut short and having to take another body and try again.

 

[Sunstone]

I think suicide can be moral at times, but that it's not automatically right or wrong. More complicated than that. For one thing, you need to take into account the likely effects a suicide will have on the people around the person. Not usually a good idea to commit suicide when you have ten year old kid to raise.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Why not compare what the rest of the world seem to think about suicide compared with America? If one can find this information. As said, I suspect religious belief - particularly Christianity - tends to be the answer. Up to the individual in my view - their life, their decision, but obviously one has to take into account how it might affect others - children, for example, and it can be especially damaging when a parent does this and leaves behind very young children who then might assume responsibility for this. But those who commit suicide are often in a bad place mentally and hardly thinking rationally all too often.

 

[Skwim]

Why not compare what the rest of the world seem to think about suicide compared with America?

I wasn't interested.

.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

According the Gallup the Americans are idiots. But I suspect the Gallup wasn't comprehensive. And there is nothing morally wrong with suicide.

 

[Apologes]

The negative impact it has on other people's lives.

 

[Jumi]

The negative impact it has on other people's lives.

It can be a kind of strength that we're not living just for ourselves, but also for other people.

 

[Jesster]

I think it is highly situational. If a person is living through so much pain that they can't willingly continue living and nobody is willing to help them recover from that pain, they might just deserve relief from that pain. Maybe instead of condemning them so much, we should help them.

 

[Srivijaya]

I guess it runs counter to the life-affirming, freedom-loving ethos of the USA. That things can get so bad, is perhaps a dark and incomprehensible scenario which a lot of people don't want to imagine, so it's easier to just label it "immoral".

Each case is unique but some suicides do massive damage to those they leave behind.

 

[Woberts]

Only 14% think cloning humans is morally acceptable? I thought it would be higher.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

My guess is that a lot of people conflate "morally unacceptable" with aberrant, or with the idea that there is something "not right" going on. Not "morally" wrong per se... but off, strange or uncomfortable. And with the specific topic of suicide... well... all animals are built with a strong self-preservation instinct, and suicide pushes as strongly against that grain as is possible.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There's something wrong with those opinions. The vast gap between opinion and action is given by the ranking of extramarital affairs. I suspect many people are answering with what they perceive to be the expected answer rather than true beliefs that lead to action.

Yeah. That "36% pornography" especially made me think "wait a minute."

 

[Kapalika]

I think suicide can be moral at times, but that it's not automatically right or wrong. More complicated than that. For one thing, you need to take into account the likely effects a suicide will have on the people around the person. Not usually a good idea to commit suicide when you have ten year old kid to raise.

Can you give an example of when it would be a moral thing to do? I assume we are not talking about in cases of doctor assisted due to great illness.

Yeah. That "36% pornography" especially made me think "wait a minute."

I took a double take at that too. I'm also surprised how many people are against fur clothes.

 

[Sunstone]

Can you give an example of when it would be a moral thing to do? I assume we are not talking about in cases of doctor assisted due to great illness.

Suppose you discovered you had an uncontrollable compulsion towards some heinous crime. I have heard, for instance, of some people who at least report that they cannot stop themselves from committing certain crimes, such as murder, rape, and child molestation. Further suppose you didn't want to turn yourself in for the crimes you already had committed, and spend the remainder of your life in prison. Yet, at the same time, you didn't want to harm any more people. Suicide might be moral under those conditions. Especially if no one depended on you, your death would not shatter anyone's life, etc.

Generally speaking though, I think suicide is a right. It becomes immoral to the degree your suicide harms others.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Suppose you discovered you had an uncontrollable compulsion towards some heinous crime. I have heard, for instance, of some people who at least report that they cannot stop themselves from committing certain crimes, such as murder, rape, and child molestation. Further suppose you didn't want to turn yourself in for the crimes you already had committed, and spend the remainder of your life in prison. Yet, at the same time, you didn't want to harm any more people. Suicide might be moral under those conditions. Especially if no one depended on you, your death would not shatter anyone's life, etc.

Generally speaking though, I think suicide is a right. It becomes immoral to the degree your suicide harms others.

I'm pretty sure some have done that actually. Bit difficult to determine whether someone might have been able to change if they do so though. Quite simple really - our minds and body, our decision, but we don't necessarily own all the consequences.

 

[Sanzbir]

According to a Gallup poll done about a year ago on the moral acceptability of certain practices, 82% of Americans find suicide to be morally unacceptable and 18% find it acceptable.

This is a huge difference, and one I would attribute to the influence of Christian thinking if I could find a Biblical passage that condemns it, but I can't. So, is this more of a secular position? If it is, what are the secular reasons for scorning suicide?

Most humans love life and hate death. Some humans hate life and love death, these commit suicide, and they are in the vast minority.

So it is fairly natural for the members of an opposing ideology to dislike those who reject their ideal (life is good, death is bad) in favor of the inverse (death is good, life is bad).

If you didn't think death preferable to life, you wouldn't commit suicide. And so the act of suicide is an act of rejection to a deeply held belief of most peoples, even most atheists, that being the belief that life is good or desirable, and death is bad or undesirable.

So overall the rejection is based on a fundamental moral axiom that almost all humans, religious or secular, hold, consciously or unconsciously. As suicide is by definition a rejection of that moral axiom, most view it as a bad.

And there is a third group, those who have been "freed from the bond" in the Taoist sense, who love neither life nor death and hate neither life nor death, but accept both as they come and go, and as the cycle of change goes onward. For the third group, the rejection of life that the suicidal person exhibits is folly, but then again so is the clinging to life and fear of death that the majority of humans exhibit.