Is Suicide selfish?

[Audit]

Short answer: No, a person's life belongs only to themself. It is a bit perverse to assume that a person should exist merely as a convenience for others.

Long answer: Suicide and its ideations are a difficult to approach topic. A suicidal person is almost never of a sound mind and thus should never be presumed to have the intellectual capability to decide if they wish to end their life. Instead of asking if suicide is "selfish", as if wanting to end an existence of endless suffering was a bad thing, it would be wiser to ask if a person should given medical help against their will. The underlying problem with declaring suicide as a selfish act is that it creates a social stigma without offering a solution, and creates a debate around whether or not it is ever socially acceptable to kill oneself, instead of, as I would prefer, a debate around how best to prevent suicide.

 

[Tennis Monkey]

I'm in the "Yes, but so are most things you do in your life" camp. Humans tend to be self-centred by nature, so if you're looking for reasons to morally condemn something, "it's selfish" isn't a great one. Even most altruistic actions confer some kind of benefit for the person carrying it out, even if it's indirect like "This will make society a better place to live in."

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

Most suicides could be regarded as selfish but there has been fates worse than death. Which in this case is understandable. (Not by getting banned from Roblox though).

Oh shit. Didn't mean to bump an old thread.

 

[Shitty User Stole a Good Name]

You’re a pussy if you kill yourself, and you go instantly to Hell for doing it

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Yes, it is selfish. Even if you have literally nobody in your life to be effected and somehow found a method not to cause any inconvenience to others, it's still selfish because everybody can do something good with their life, no matter how small it may be. So it's a waste just from a practical standpoint.

Morally, it's beyond just selfish, it's a sin against God, one for which you cannot even repent. Even if you are a stone cold Atheist you can't prove or guarantee you're not committing a sin and that you won't go to Hell, so at the very least it's not worth it just because the sheer logical pros/cons of it are not in suicide's favor.

Those are just the realist's arguments. More optimistically, at minimum, your life could get better, even if it's never going to be good. Something unforeseen can technically happen which makes life tolerable, or even good (unlikely, to be fair), so if you throw your precious life away you're forfeiting those possibilities on top of the above considerations.

Tldr; suicide is gay

 

[The Internet Dick]

During WW2, submarine officer Captain John Cromwell chose to go down with the stricken and sinking USS Sculpin rather than surrender along with the Sculpin's surviving officers and crew because he knew vital secret details regarding the impending invasion of the Gilbert Islands, for which he posthumously received the Medal of Honor.

There are innumerable instances where brave people have sacrificed themselves for the greater good, so no, suicide isn't always selfish. Sometimes--as with Cromwell--it's even noble.

 

[Fareal]

Suicide is a rational solution to your problems. Try it today. Refer a friend.

 

[Slap47]

Yes, it is selfish. Even if you have literally nobody in your life to be effected and somehow found a method not to cause any inconvenience to others, it's still selfish because everybody can do something good with their life, no matter how small it may be. So it's a waste just from a practical standpoint.

Morally, it's beyond just selfish, it's a sin against God, one for which you cannot even repent. Even if you are a stone cold Atheist you can't prove or guarantee you're not committing a sin and that you won't go to Hell, so at the very least it's not worth it just because the sheer logical pros/cons of it are not in suicide's favor.

Those are just the realist's arguments. More optimistically, at minimum, your life could get better, even if it's never going to be good. Something unforeseen can technically happen which makes life tolerable, or even good (unlikely, to be fair), so if you throw your precious life away you're forfeiting those possibilities on top of the above considerations.

Tldr; suicide is gay

1. Sometimes a person literally cannot do any good. They are in a bed and dying of cancer or are so disabled that "living as inspiration" is just not really meaningful. They may have also just done something that makes them deserving of suicide such as pedophilia.

2. God is not real, but even in that case there are religions like the Baha'i that have a form of suicide that is literally how you break the circle of Samsara. That religion has just as much evidence as Christianity.

3. It can also get worse.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

1. Sometimes a person literally cannot do any good. They are in a bed and dying of cancer or are so disabled that "living as inspiration" is just not really meaningful. They may have also just done something that makes them deserving of suicide such as pedophilia.

Even in bed and terminally ill you can donate to charity or political causes. A pedophile who truly feels bad enough to kill themselves should"do something" about his unrepentant peers, that could be viewed as a good form of atonement.

2. God is not real, but even in that case there are religions like the Baha'i that have a form of suicide that is literally how you break the circle of Samsara. That religion has just as much evidence as Christianity.

You're probably better off risking not breaking that cycle than you are risking eternal damnation, and also I doubt there's as much evidence as Christianity. Christ is at minimum an actual historical figure.

3. It can also get worse.

If it does then suicide will still be an option, but if it gets better then you won't need that option.

 

[WULULULULU]

Yes, it is selfish. Even if you have literally nobody in your life to be effected and somehow found a method not to cause any inconvenience to others, it's still selfish because everybody can do something good with their life, no matter how small it may be. So it's a waste just from a practical standpoint.

Morally, it's beyond just selfish, it's a sin against God, one for which you cannot even repent. Even if you are a stone cold Atheist you can't prove or guarantee you're not committing a sin and that you won't go to Hell, so at the very least it's not worth it just because the sheer logical pros/cons of it are not in suicide's favor.

Those are just the realist's arguments. More optimistically, at minimum, your life could get better, even if it's never going to be good. Something unforeseen can technically happen which makes life tolerable, or even good (unlikely, to be fair), so if you throw your precious life away you're forfeiting those possibilities on top of the above considerations.

Tldr; suicide is gay

Well said. No one benefits from a suicide. You endangered your loved ones, others around your vicinity, and mostly importantly yourself. Remember, God gave life to humans as a gift and our own bodies as our temples. To desecrate said temple and gift is to risk yourself to eternal damnation.

 

[SpergioLeonne]

Suicide is selfish unless you are a schizophrenic or an opioid addict, in which case being alive is selfish

 

[Stan]

It is a selfish and ungrateful act, and you hurt a lot of people along the way, not least the poor bastard who finds your body and has to notify your next of kin.

Your life is a gift from God and your parents, but unfortunately you can’t say “sorry, I don’t want this, you can have it back” and 41% yourself. This is because you will leave a you-shaped hole in whoever else’s life you’re involved in and because you’ve rejected God’s imperative to do good on this world.

Maybe if you’re already at the end of life and things have become unbearably painful or undignified, and there is no chance of recovery, you can get assisted suicide.

 

[Kiwisee]

It depends on the reasons behind it.

If a mentally ill person does it because their mental illness convinced them that they're a burden that's better off dead, I'd say that person needed some serious help and wouldn't fault them on that ground.

I had an acquaintance who developed post partum
Psychosis after giving birth and kept hearing voices telling her to kill her baby on behalf of Satan. She ended up killing herself instead of her baby because had good reason to believe that she was going to hurt her baby. I'm hesitant to call her selfish because, in her mind, she was saving her baby by sacrificing herself instead.

On the other hand, there are narcs like Ariel Castro who killed himself within one month of his life sentence after keeping three girls as sex slaves for a decade. He did so as a means to deny them justice, instead of trying to atone for the trauma he caused those girls. He couldn't handle one hundredth of the torture he inflicted onto his victims, so he killed himself as a final “fuck you” to them for getting him imprisoned in the first place. He is 100% selfish and is likely burning in hell right now.

I'm also reminded of a case I read about in a textbook about a convicted murderer who wanted to receive the death penalty to atone for accidentally killing his wife (he was drinking and driving, I think) He not only believed that the death penalty would be a fair payment to the family of his late wife, but that he was prepared to answer to God himself. The judge then only gave him a 12 year manslaughter charge. As soon as he was released, he wrote a suicide note stating that he was killing himself because his wife never received real justice for her death.

Was he selfish? I wouldn't say so. In his mind, he deserved to die for what he did to his wife but the courts saw him as a sad man struggling with alcoholism at the time of her murder. I would go as far as to say he felt he was doing the right thing, sad as it is.

What I'm getting at is that it's really case by case, hard to label it all as selfish when there's different motives. At the end of the day, it's a permanent solution to temporary problems that seem unbearable.

 

[Michael Wade]

Why kill yourself when your going to die anyway from living a full life? It's not going to do anything but take away from the life you have to live.

Everyone will go to God one way or another, but Its entirely possible to open up a door when your not ready. The consequences of going out early when you have a damaged soul and a lack of understanding/tolerance for yourself ...... I can't imagine to it leading to anything good.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

During WW2, submarine officer Captain John Cromwell chose to go down with the stricken and sinking USS Sculpin rather than surrender along with the Sculpin's surviving officers and crew because he knew vital secret details regarding the impending invasion of the Gilbert Islands, for which he posthumously received the Medal of Honor.

There are innumerable instances where brave people have sacrificed themselves for the greater good, so no, suicide isn't always selfish. Sometimes--as with Cromwell--it's even noble.

Shit like that isn't really suicide so much as an unavoidable death. It's not like you intended to kill yourself but you have to die in order to effect a greater good. It's in the same class as martyrdom or Seneca's forced suicide at the hands of Nero or Socrates' death. All you can do is face it with courage and do what needs to be done. Even then, it isn't selfish since it's not you killing yourself out of despair, but you having to die to effect a greater good.


Another edge case involves people that are chronically mentally ill and unable to truly understand the gravity of taking your life.

 

[Overwritten Tapes]

Sometimes the pain is never ending. Have to end it somehow.

 

[Anasûrimbor Kellhus]

if you're normal and have loved ones yes. I don't know though with trannies probably the most selfless thing they can do is off themselves if they refuse to be a normal contributing member of society.

 

[WhimsicalTrolli]

People who call suicide selfish will never experience waking up in a endless cycle of never amounting to anything.

 

[dick brain]

People who call suicide selfish will never experience waking up in a endless cycle of never amounting to anything.

Nah, there are at least a couple people in this thread calling suicide selfish who I am certain have never amounted to anything.

 

[Otterly]

Depends. Throwing yourself on a grenade to save those around you isn’t selfish. Killing yourself via other people (in front of a train for example or walking into a road) is very selfish. MAID is selfish, because it makes killers of others and creates and feeds a state machine for killing. Killing yourself when you have people who will be hurt by it is selfish. Killing yourself when you’ve got two months to live and would be in agony the whole time probably isn’t selfish.