Ice

Please excuse me if I posted this in the wrong forum, and move this to the appropriate forum if I have. Thanks. I will learn where to post what as time goes by.

Oh, and also excuse me if this has been done before, but I didn't see any threads about what I'm about to discuss.

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There are many arguments against suicide, but there is one which seems to me to be more convincing than others - the argument that the mental state of a suicidal person makes it impossible for suicide to be rational, according to the meaning of what is are normal mental states we currently understand it.

Take a person. He is depressed and wishes to commit suicide. In this case, he is classed as clinically depressed, possessive of a lower state of mental ability, and thus is mentally incapable of making perfectly rational decisions, especially regarding his life. This depression might stem from a mental disorder, pain from illness or an emotional setback, but the classification of him being clinically depressed stands, and from there, the argument for the irrationality of his decision regarding suicide stands.

Now take the same person recovered from his depression. He is now as 'normal' as other folks. For him to consider suicide now would be considered irrational, since there is apparently nothing that would cause him to want to end a satisfactory life (if he felt life were unsatisfactory, he would 'automatically' revert to the previous category of being clinically depressed).

Can anyone point out the flaws in this argument? (Note: I support suicide and euthanasia.)

Misso

The theory might be correct, but it's very Catch-22-ish.
Suicide doesn't have to be rational. If someone feels that suicide is the only way out and the best option, then that's how he or she feels - clinical depression or not. It's a matter of pros and cons. The pro of suicide for a clinical depressed person is no more suffering (unless one of the various religions that has hell as a concept is right), the con is that the person has no chance of a nice life anymore.
Someone on a documentary, I think I saw it two weeks ago, said about suicide "it's not a ticket to heaven, it's a way out of hell". Clinical depressed people go through hell, and in my opinion they have every right to end that. I don't think it's humane to let people live in agony because they are deemed unable to make rational choices. The only person who can judge in this matter is the patient. From an objective point of view, the person might not have a reason to kill him- or herself, but an outside person can never judge on how someone else feels inside.

Alonzo Fyfe

It is clearly the case that some people who consider suicide are irrational. But not all.

Consider a person in extreme pain on the basis of some disease. I'm not talking about minor discomfort, I am talking about a deep burning and permanent pain. No pain killer can take care of it.

Consider a person who has spent his entire life saving money so that he could leave an endowment upon his death -- something that will live after him. We are talking talking about millions of dollars here, but several hundred thousand dollars that is the best he could have done in his years at meager-paying jobs. He has just been diagnosed with a degenerative mental disease. Quickly he will be unable to function mentally -- but the disease will not kill him. His only future to spend year after year in a nursing home, draining away the money that he had spent his life accumulating.

Consider a father, taken prisoner with his family by a sadist who is into vivisection and dismemberment. He has a chance to take out the sadist but the best way to guarantee success would cost him his own life.

One can argue that in neither of these three cases does the suicidal person actually intend to take his own life. He intends to be free of pain, to preserve his endowment, or to protect his family.

But it is also true of depressed people that they do not intend to take their own life. They, too, see their act as being a method to free themselves from pain, of experincing a better future than they can have by remaining alive.

The difference is that, in some cases, the beliefs about which option will best help the agent realize what he values are rational, and in some cases they are not.

The above examples should illustrate that it is NOT the case that suicide is always irrational.

Zulu

I'd have to say that in most cases suicide isn't a rational decision. In the advent that it is, clearly, it's that person's choice to take their life.

What to make of someone, for example, suffering from extreme and painful depression. Should we let them kill themselves or do we have a moral obligation to help them? My thoughts are that in the vast majority of cases we have a duty to help them. It's hard to think of a scenario where a person does not have an extremely painful disease yet still wants to end their life.

With mental disease, it's even more complicated. The best way to eliminate the complication is by making it known that you resign your will to live under such and such a circumstance...

-Zulu

Alonzo Fyfe

My view is that we should treat these options like any other type of medical decision. A person who is seeking suicide should be able to go to a trained medical professional to discuss the options. The medical professional would treat this like any other request and offer a diagnosis and treatment plan. In most cases, the doctor may recommend some sort of treatment for depression. But, the doctor should be free to judge that the request for suicide is rational and to offer this course if it is truely compatible with the patient's values and interests.

In the examples that I gave above, the old man who has been diagnosed with some degenerative mental disease who wishes to protect the money he has saved to leave an endowment for the future ought to be able to obtain physician's assistance in arranging his own comfortable and timely death.

Zulu

Has this person stated [a few years prior] that such was their wish?

Are they in a state to communicate this which at this time?

Unless one of those is true, I wouldn't support euthanasia.

-Zulu

Psychic

I think it’s of great importance in this regard, to free our minds from all the leftovers of religion regarding life. Life is not a HOLY thing.
From a naturalistic point of view, after we have stabilized the existence of our species, life is not the supreme goal. The characteristics of this life in question matters indeed.
And from a utilitarian point of view, ending lives can be morally acceptable If ending it brings benefits or eliminates harms for the person in question and majority of people around him. And these benefits and harms that accrue after the ending should be weighed carefully.
There is absolutely no value in a life of misery for the person and those around him, that has very minimal or negligible chances of getting any better. Ending such life would be perfectly rational and sound.

BUT… in the case of depressed individuals, the suicidal thoughts are the hallmark symptom of their illness. These thoughts stems from the low-self esteem and cognitive distortions about the past, the present, and the future of the patient. And once the depressive illness is cured those thoughts and wishes of suicide are cured.
So suicide shouldn’t be allowed by any means unless the depressive illness is expected to remain for the rest of the individuals life, and nothing can be done.

Ice

Psychic:

In terms of "nothing can be done" - things can always be done for the depressives - psychotic medication. Or is that ruled out as something that can be done?

Psychic

absolutely. to be exluded as things to be done is also Electro-convulsive therapy (electric shocks) which is considered as the last resort in treating depression.
Consider this ... If your tonsils for example, which are part of the Immune system, are becoming over reactive and causing you alots of trouble and sickness, and antibiotics won't help, and there is nothing that can be done conservativly you would simply ... remove them.
apply this to your brain. as simple as it gets.

Ice

The problem is many people, including psychologists, no longer see depression as a "mental" problem. They see it as a physical problem to do with chemical imbalances in the brain. Since emotions, and depression, are affected by the chemicals in one's brain, much like more specific forms of "mental illness" (schizophrenia, manic-depressives, bipolars, etc), the solution seem to be prescription to restore the balance. The problem is, what is the norm?

And if it is seen as a medical/physical problem as less as a mental problem, what is the rational opposition to lifelong medication, since one would take lifelong medication to treat other physical ailments?