Examined and rejected. Top o’ the Stack.
Facebook advertisement: “Mercifully brief, perfectly rigorous, and indisputably sound.” I wouldn’t promote it that way here, of course.
Contemplating suicide? Look before you leap.
Julian Green, Diary 1928-1957, p. 230:
The yearning to leave the world is so strong at times that I don’t know how to resist it, but am nearly sure that this is the great temptation that must at all costs be warded off.
Thanks for this post, Bill. I wasn’t familiar with Landsberg’s work.
“How could suicide count as a counterexample to (1)? Well, as Landsberg points out, killing oneself and killing another are very different. (79) As I would put it, in a case of rational suicide, one kills oneself out of loving concern for oneself whereas the killing of another is typically, though not always, a hostile and hateful act.”
Another difference: in a case of rational suicide, one consents to be killed, since one decides to kill oneself, whereas in the killing of another, the one killed usually does not consent to being killed, and the killer does not seek such consent (though there are exceptions, such as voluntary euthanasia).
Question: suppose we have duties to ourselves, including a duty not to engage in suicide. Can we waive such duties to ourselves?
On one hand, one might argue that such duties are categorical. Categorical duties are absolute and thus can’t be waived. The one who has a categorical duty to do x absolutely ought to do x. On the other hand, one might argue that the one owed a duty is free to forgo the right to be treated as the duty demands. Hence, one is free to relinquish the right not to be killed by oneself.
Perhaps the major can be construed in the same sense as the sixth commandment? (I’m assuming you accept the veracity of this commandment.) If suicide is a case of unjust killing in the intended sense of the sixth commandment, then the argument is sound – a big “if” I grant with a nod to Elliot’s comments.
A disquisition of your alleged counterexamples to the Augustinian “Every intentional killing of a human being is [morally] wrong”:
1) Just war:
this is a category error: war is not an act that some one moral agent commits. And even if it were, it does not necessarily involve killing, nor the opposition of some individual intellect, will, or life, over and against some other individual rational entity.
2) Capital punishment:
Tendentious, and petitio’ing the principii.
Simply stating “most people think that intentionally killing certain people guilty of capital crimes, is morally justifiable”, doesn’t make that statement true.
3) Self-Defense
“defending” yourself, where your intent is the death of your attacker, is substantively different, morally, from doing-what-you-can-to-stop-the-attack.
Anecdotally, I have been in this situation: I knocked the guy out. Had I intentionally ended his life, I would be a murderer.
4) Abortion
Again, tendentious. By Augustine’s lights, any intentional killing of a foetus is immoral: just saying “certain abortions are counterexamples!” is in no way a counterexample.
I assume you’re referring to to ectopic pregnancies, or similar situations, where it’s a choice between the life of the mother or the baby. fine. but in those situations, the death of the baby isn’t the POINT of the procedure: to the contrary, if it could be managed that both the mother AND the baby survived, then everyone would be ecstatic.
ergo, NOT intentional killing.
principle of double effect.