While many today frown upon suicide and look at it as a moral wrong, Stoics in ancient times considered this a noble death under particular circumstances. Stoics were concerned with the active relation of cosmic determinism and human freedom. They held that it is virtuous to hold one’s will with that is in accordance to nature, and that this type of virtue is sufficient for happiness. Furthermore, they were more concerned with logic and reason rather than ethics, and therefore believed that a freedom from earthly passions was a key to happiness and logic.
This logical thought process, when applied with the accordance of nature, leads to one of the Stoic’s most controversial ideals in our time period: justifiable suicide. If one can rid themselves of all passions when making the judgment to take their own, then it is perfectly fine to do so, only if it is to avoid further pain and suffering in their life. One example of this is a man who knows he is going to be captured and enslaved by an enemy or even a man who has lost all his possessions and only sees more suffering in his future, and that death is a logical and reasonable way, within the natural order, to avoid further pain. Some people also refer to these types of suicide as “mercy killings.”
Today’s society frowns upon this view, as does the law system. While all states have abolished attempted suicide as a felony, many still have suicide listed as a “common law crime,” which in effect, bars the suicidal persons family from recovering any damages from the death unless the suicidal person can be proven to have been “of unsound mind.” While most people argue that anyone willing to commit suicide is “of unsound mind,” this is simply not the case. How it is possible to call someone “of unsound mind” if they have logically, and without letting their pathetic passions take control of their thought process, deduced that taking their own life will prevent much greater future sufferings and pains and injustices? Is it wrong for an inmate on death row to commit suicide, even though he is going to be put to death in the future anyways? In certain situations, as long as it is thought through thoroughly and carefully, suicide, in a Stoic sense, seems appropriate and nothing that should be frowned upon, much less seen as illegal in today’s society.
You posed a really interesting question, "Is it wrong for an inmate on death row to commit suicide, even though he is going to be put to death in the future anyways?" I think that, in this case, it depends on the amount of time that he has before he is put to death. Don't you think that the stoics would agree that if the man has 3 months left on death row then he should take his own life in order to avoid living 3 months of an illogical life. However, if it is the case that he only has 1 week on death row, then he should take his fate as it is presented to him and just accept his sentence. I don't know...what do you think?
ReplyDeleteyeah this truly is an interesting question.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the stoics would think it ok no matter how much time he had left. I feel like in this case they might see suicide as giving in to your emotions, as a "pathetic" response to either fear, impatience, or any other feelings that might cause you to take your life before it is due. I wonder in this case, would they say that it is his destiny to at the syringe, or would they say that he was destined to kill himself while on death row?
This is a very interesting topic and it touches on one of the points made in class that caught my attention the most. Matt, the question you bring up about the inmate on death row is definitely thought provoking. If the inmate is scheduled to die anyways, should he or she wait and act in accordance to nature? Or, is it a wise and logical decision to commit suicide? Stoics say that there are some cases where it is permissible for a wise person to commit suicide while stoics are concerned with the relationship between cosmic determinism and free will. They emphasize that it is virtuous to maintain a will that is in accordance with nature. So, for this case in particular, with death being inevitable, would it be more virtuous to wait to die or would it be wiser to do die in the way they are intended to die? I’m not really sure. There seems to be a lot of contradicting ways to approach this question. At the end of it, the person is dead no matter what so maybe the stoics would say that whichever way the person can justify the easiest without emotions and purely in logical thinking would be the best.
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