26. Suicide, Part III: The morality of suicide and course conclusion

Evaluating Suicide Through Consequences

Professor Shelly Kagan sets aside earlier “quick and dirty,” partly theological arguments about suicide and turns to broader moral principles. Consequences matter to almost every moral theory, though theories disagree about whether they are the only thing that matters.

The effects of suicide must be considered for everyone affected:

• The person who dies: Death is often bad because it deprives someone of a worthwhile future. But if a person’s remaining life would be worse than death—for example, in cases of severe, continuing suffering—death might benefit that person.
• Family and loved ones: Suicide commonly causes grief and distress. Yet loved ones might also recognize that it has ended a person’s otherwise unavoidable suffering. The overall consequences depend on the circumstances.
• People who depend on the person: Their needs can weigh heavily. For example, a parent’s death might seriously harm young children, potentially outweighing the benefit to the parent.

The Utilitarian View

Utilitarianism judges actions by whether they produce the greatest overall happiness, or minimize suffering, with everyone’s interests counted equally. On this view, suicide is neither always wrong nor always acceptable. Its morality depends on how its consequences compare with the available alternatives.

A utilitarian assessment would consider:

• Whether the person’s life is worse than death.
• Whether treatment or another alternative could improve the person’s situation.
• How the death would affect loved ones and dependents.
• Whether the total harms of suicide outweigh the suffering it would end.

Deontology and the Prohibition on Harming the Innocent

Deontological theories hold that morality involves more than consequences. One relevant principle is that it is generally wrong to harm or kill an innocent person, even if doing so would produce better results.

Kagan illustrates this with a hospital thought experiment: killing a healthy patient, John, to use his organs to save five dying patients might improve the numerical outcome, but many people would still judge it wrong. The example highlights the idea that people have a right not to be killed, and that this right can outweigh beneficial consequences.

Applied to suicide, this principle initially seems to imply that suicide is wrong: a person who kills themself is still killing a person—namely, themself. Kagan considers two ways this conclusion might be challenged.

Two Possible Qualifications: Harm and Consent

Whether the Action Harms the Person Overall

Suicide may involve physically ending one’s life, but if the person is genuinely better off dead, perhaps the action does not leave them worse off overall. Kagan compares this to an amputation that harms a patient in one respect but saves their life. If the prohibition is against making someone worse off overall, suicide might not violate it in every case.

Whether the Person Consents

Consent can make some actions permissible that would otherwise be wrongful. Boxing is an example: contestants may strike one another because they have agreed to participate. Consent also helps explain why self-sacrifice can be admirable. A soldier who knowingly falls on a grenade to save others has volunteered; forcing someone else onto the grenade would be morally different.

However, consent cannot automatically make every harmful act acceptable. Kagan gives examples involving a person who casually asks to be killed, someone who is delusional, and a young child. These cases suggest that consent must meet important conditions.

A responsible version of the consent principle might require that consent be:

• Given freely and voluntarily.
• Informed, with an understanding of the likely consequences.
• Given by someone competent, rational, and able to make the decision.
• Supported by adequate reasons, rather than being impulsive or based on a distorted understanding of the situation.

Kagan’s provisional conclusion is that suicide may be morally permissible in some cases if the decision is reasoned, informed, voluntary, and made by a competent person with good reason. The mere fact that someone has attempted suicide does not establish that these conditions were met. When encountering someone at risk, he argues, there is reason to be cautious and consider whether distress or impaired judgment is affecting the decision. But this does not prove that suicide must be forbidden in every possible case.

Course Conclusion: Life, Death, and Fear

Kagan closes by urging students to examine their beliefs about death carefully and ask what they can actually defend, rather than relying only on what they hope is true.

He summarizes the course’s central claims as follows:

• Human beings do not have a soul; they are “machines,” though extraordinarily complex ones capable of love, creativity, dreams, plans, and relationships.
• Death is the end of the person and is not necessarily a profound mystery; it can be understood as the failure of a living organism.
• Death is regrettable when it cuts short a life that would otherwise have been good. But that does not show that immortality would be desirable.
• Fear of death is not, in his view, the appropriate response. People may reasonably grieve that life ends too soon while also recognizing how fortunate they are to have lived.
• Continuing to live is not always good under every circumstance. There may be times when a person’s life no longer has something worthwhile to offer and letting go can make sense.

Kagan’s concluding invitation is to face death “without fear and without illusion.”

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Professor Shelly Kagan — lecturer and sole substantive speaker.
• Audience — applauds at the end.