TYPES OF SUICIDE

Anomic suicide occurs when a person

experiences anomie
Altruistic suicide happens when there is
excessive regulation to individuals by social
forces
Egoistic suicide happens when people feel
totally detached from society.

Fatalistic suicide occurs under conditions

of extreme social regulations that result in
oppressive conditions and a denial of the
self and of agency.
A. Ancient and Classical Views of Suicide
1.Plato
-He claimed that suicide is disgraceful

Four exceptions
1.When one’s mind is morally corrupted and one’s
character can therefore not be salvaged
2.When the self-killing is done by judicial order
3.When the self-killing is compelled by
extreme and unavoidable misfortune

4.When the self-killing results from shame at

having participated in grossly unjust actions
2. Aristotle
-He claims that suicide does not treat oneself
unjustly, suicide is somehow wrong to the state or
community.

3. Roman Stoics
-whenever the means to living a naturally flourishing
life are not available to us, suicide may be justified.
• When a man circumstances contain a preponderance
of things in accordance with the nature, it is
appropriate for him to remain alive; when he
possesses or sees in prospect a majority of contrary
things it is appropriate for him to depart from life.
B. Morality and Rationality of Suicide
1. Property-based argument
- We own our bodies and hence we are permitted to
dispose of them as we wish
2. Liberal views
- Suicide is morally acceptable provided that the
distress to others caused by suicide does not
outweigh the distress to the person who refrains
from committing suicide.
TWO MAJOR APPROACHES OF LIBERTARIAN VIEW
a. Liberal Utilitarian approach
- Richard Brandt defines suicide as the intentional
termination of one’s own life and argues against the
view that suicide is always immoral.

- a rational judgment about one’s own death

requires a comparison between the benefit of living
and dying(suicide)
b. Autonomy position
-”persons should be allowed to be self-determining
agents”-Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress

-disrespect and principle of autonomy is denied if

the right to commit suicide is denied
C. Prohibition and Irrationality of Suicide
1. Christian Prohibition
-suicide is morally wrong
-Prohibition of suicide is a natural extension of the fifth
commandment (St. Augustine).
-St. Thomas Aquinas later defended this prohibition on
three ground
1.Suicide is contrary to natural self-love
 2.Suicide injures the community of which an individual
is a part
3.Suicide violates our duty to God, we violate His right
to determine the duration of our earthly existence

-God bestowed upon us our natural personal liberty but

that liberty does not include the liberty to destroy
oneself.
-Aquinas and Locke also suggested that we are God’s
property and so suicide is a wrong to God akin to
destruction of property.
2. Conservative View
- According to Stanley Hauerwas, living is an
obligation and that man is to go on living even
when he is far from figuring out why things happen
as they do.

Duty towards community

-People live in system.
The willingness to live in the face of pain, boredom and
suffering is:
• a moral obligation to one another
• sign that life can be endured
• an opportunity to teach others how to face life, how
to live well, and to let others understand the
connection between happiness and burdens
D. Arguments against Christian Prohibition
and Conservative view
• According to David Hume, if by divine order is meant
simply that which occurs according to Gods consent,
then God appears to consent to all our actions and no
distinction exists between those of our actions to
which God consents and those to which he does not.
• Hume also rejects the thesis that suicide violates
our duties to ourselves (self-love) and our duties to
others.

• The traditional theistic conception of God as not

lacking in any way, how could the destruction of
something God owns be a harm to God or His
interests (Holley 1989).
• Destruction of property might be morally justified
in order to prevent significant harm to oneself

• If a person’s life is sufficiently bad, an all loving God

might permit a man to destroy his life through
suicide to be able to rest.

• Gift does not come with conditions so if God gives

our lives as a gift, it turned to be our own.