In order not to get bogged down in disputes about the nature of rights or the nature of rationality in general, let me rephrase your question as follows: If someone in sound mind decides to end his or her life, should this be allowed? If not, why not?

One reason we might not allow a person of sound mind to commit suicide is that we think that person's decision is based on seriously incomplete or misleading evidence -- e.g. if her reading has led her to believe that her cancer is incurable when in fact it is quite easily eliminated. No matter how reasonable, and how well-read, a person is, it is possible to make bad decisions because one lacks good evidence. At the very least, we ought to intervene in such cases to make sure that the person has accurate information before acting. The very same evidence can lead different people to different conclusions, however, and we must not assume that everyone who disagrees with our own view (or an expert's view) is of unsound mind. Some people believe that a life without movement, or a life without language, is not worth living; others are confident that such a life is worth living; and neither group should be dismissed as irrational.

Another reason for disallowing suicide is the conviction that people do not own their lives and that no one should destroy what they do not own. This reason has been invoked by religious traditions that insist that lives belong to God and only God should be allowed to bring life to an end. But there are also less religious versions of this argument that view life as a part of nature that is not ours to destroy.

A third reason for disallowing suicide -- in certain situations, anyway -- concerns its likely effect on others. If a desperate mother's suicide is likely to wreck the lives of her children (leaving them in the hands of an abusive father, for example, or traumatizing them in such a way that they too will live desperately unhappy lives), then it may be right to prevent her suicide in order to save the lives of the children.

A more abstract reason for disallowing suicide concerns the apparent contradiction in the idea that we can improve a life by ending a life. The suicide's thought that she will be better off dead seems to contradict the fact that, if dead, she will not be anything. Her desire to retain control over her life by ending it in the way she wants to end seems to contradict the fact that there is no control over a life that has ended. There are other ways to express a suicidal intention, though, that do not lead to such contradictions.

I am convinced that there are many situations in which suicide is rational and allowable (situations of relentless pain, inevitable loss of mind, or endangerment of others). Furthermore, I think that suicide is something that we ought sometimes to facillitate (by supplying appropriate medications, for example). Because of the complexities described above, however, I do not think that discussion of this difficult topic is advanced by appeals to a 'right to suicide'.

Your question makes me wonder how many people who commit suicide do so with the belief (1) that their consciousness will cease (their identity will end) and how many do so with the belief (2) that their consciousness (and identity) will continue but in a better existence (e.g., heaven). Though this seems like an impossible survey to do (no way to ask the dead!), we could ask people who survive attempted suicides what their goal was (or if they had a goal at all). Perhaps the research has been done. For some reason, I've always assumed that most people who commit suicide (other than terrorists) do so with belief 1 rather than belief 2. And some people may avoid suicide even in the face of despair because they have the belief (3) that their consciousness will continue in a worse existence (e.g., hell), as Hamlet reminds us: "the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country."

Of course, it would not be illogical to say "I would rather be dead" if one believed (2), that dying tranports them to a better world (and "I would rather not be dead" obviously makes sense for someone who believees 3). So, the question is whether it makes sense for someone who believes 1, that his or her consciousness will cease with the death of the body, to say it.

First of all, I don't think it is right to say it is impossible to conceive what it is like to be dead. On this view, there is nothing it is like to be dead. And it seems we can conceive of that--it's presumably the (lack of) mental state we undergo in dreamless sleep (or under anesthesia). We can conceive of it; we just can't experience it consciously.

Now, does this impossibility mean that it is illogical to say "I'd rather be dead"? It doesn't seem so to me. One might mean, "What I consciously experience is so miserable that it would be better for my consciousness to cease." (I hope anyone who feels that way would seek help from friends, family, professionals, and help-lines before he or she believed it to be true, especially since miserable experiences can often give way to much better experiences with time.) If I say that, I am not saying that I will be better off (that things will be better for me) when I lack consciousness, since I will no longer exist. Rather, I am saying that things will be better when I lack consciousness and no longer exist. (It's easy to see how there could be utilitarian arguments for suicide.)

Another way to see the point is to recognize that we have current preferences for states of affairs that we know will exist only after we are dead. For instance, I prefer there to be a viable environment for my great-grandchildren. And I am willing to give up satisfying some of my preferences for my current self to satisfy that preference (though we really are not built to do so and it's hard to get ourselves to do it!). I also put away some of the money I could spend on stuff for me to purchase life insurance, which I know would only be useful if I were dead. I prefer that my family have that money even though I believe that I won't experience them using it. Similarly, it seems one could prefer to have no experiences at all to having bad experiences, even though one believes that he or she would not experience having no experiences.

What about other decisions you face? Does it strike you as strange that anyone should ultimately have any reason to act other than in the service of their own personal happiness? If so, you are challenging all moral obligations and would find it just as strange that anyone should be "literally obligated" to refrain from rape and murder.

I assume that this is not your view, that you accept some obligations toward others and are willing to take their interests into account, alongside your own, when deciding how to act. But if this is the way you think about your ordinary conduct decisions, then why should the decision about suicide be special? If your mother's feelings are a reason for you to call her on her birthday, then why are they not also a reason for refraining from suicide?

The illusion that we have no obligation to consider others' interests when contemplating suicide may arise from two sources. First, many jurisdictions forbid suicide and also assisting those who want to die. This may strike us as exceeding society's legitimate authority. A society does not own its citizens. And when a fully competent citizen wants to die, and perhaps wants a friend's help with this, then society should not stand in the way.

Agreeing with this sentiment, we may reject the intrusion of society and its law in our decision about suicide, and we may further conclude that we have no moral obligation to comply with such an (unjust) law. From this we may then falsely infer that we have no moral obligations toward others in this matter.

An analogous mistake is common with regard to freedom of speech. We strongly reject the idea that society's law may constrain what we may say or write. We express this in sentences like "I can say what I want." But on reflection we realize, nonetheless, that we sometimes say things we (morally) ought not to have said -- even if saying them was legal and rightly so. With regard to speech, then, the law ought not forbid all that it is morally wrong to express. This case shows what is not obvious: the fact that some action ought to be legally permitted is compatible with this action being morally wrong. In some cases, citizens ought to have a legal right to do the morally wrong thing. Suicide may be one such case.

The other source of the illusion is the very great pain that people contemplating suicide are typically experiencing. In comparison to this pain, the interests of others may pale to insignificance, especially for the person longing to die. To correct for this illusion, we may imagine an unusual case: a guy who is a bit bored with life, whose car mirror was damaged, and who is fighting the third pimple on his chin in a single month. He is not especially eager to live or to die, but feels mildly inclined to do himself in. When so little is at stake for him, it is easier to appreciate that the interests of others may by strong enough to tip the scales. If his parents, siblings, spouse, and children would all the totally devasted by his suicide, surely he ought to pull himself together, get that mirror repaired, fight the new pimple with aftershave, and think of doing something exciting with his family. It would be wrong for him to let his very slight preference sideline the devasting effects his suicide would have on others.

This case suggests what I think is the right answer to your query. In this matter, as in all others, we have a moral obligation to take the interests of others into account. This does not mean that we have a general obligation to stay alive for their sake. In some cases the interests of others really do pale to insignificance in comparison to one's own, and it such cases suicide is permissible, perhaps after one has done one what can do to ease the pain of those left behind. Yet in other cases, like that of the preceding paragraph, one does have a moral obligation to stay alive for the sake of others.

Yes, though I wouldn't want to have to adjudicate responsibility in a particular case.

Here's the philosophical principle I've got in mind: If a person A provides sufficient motivation for person B to commit an act, then A might be responsible for B's act. If A intended to provide sufficient motivation, intending that B commit the act, then I can't imagine A not being responsible. And if B would not have committed the act but for A's motivating actions -- in other words, if whatever A did was also necessary to B's committing the act -- and A knew this, then A would definitely be responsible.

The problem with applying this general principle to suicides is that what counted as sufficient and necessary motivational conditions for a particular suicide are almost never known for certain. Most suicide victims (as I understand it) are assumed not to be in full rational control of their actions; e.g., there is mental illness involved. If suicide is an irrational act, then assigning responsibility will be a formidably difficult, if not moot, task.

In the case you describe, if the person causing severe emotional distress intended to push the victim to suicide, and the victim would not have committed suicide but for the infliction of the severe emotional distress, then yes, s/he is responsible. If the person causing the distress never intended to push the victim to suicide, but knew (or should reasonably have known) that it might, and the victim would not have committed suicde but for the distress, then I'd say yes again. But if the victim would have committed suicide anyway, then the person causing the distress would not be responsible, even if s/he intended to do it (though some might disagree with me here). If the suicide has been successful, could we ever know what role the emotional distress actually played?

(This isn't a precise illustration, but I think it might be relevant to sorting out the issue: Depressed patients given anti-depressants show a significant rate of suicide, so there's been some concern that anti-depressants are responsible for patients commiting suicide. But one of the more notable symptoms of depression is extreme lethargy. So these patients may have been intending suicide all along, but they didn't have the energy to carry it out until the anti-depressant alleviated the lethargy. In logical terms, the anti-depressant didn't provide a sufficient condition for the suicide, but rather a necessary one. Normally providing a necessary condition doesn't assign responsibility unless it was done with the intent of providing a necessary condition. The doctors who prescribed anti-depressants for these patients never intended to provide the necessary energy for the patient to go through with a previously-planned suicide, so they wouldn't be responsible.)

I don't think you are wrong to have such a belief, and we can all think of situations in which people might come to the reasonable conclusion that death was preferable to life. There are of course religious, and not only religious, principles on which suicide is morally ruled out, but social stigma is not nowadays normally much attached to suicide, it seems to me. For example, relatives who assist in the death of someone are rarely now convicted by juries of anything illegal, and in a sense they are assisting in suicide, the suicide of someone who is no longer able to carry it out by themselves. Suicide itself is no longer a crime, in most jurisdictions, and there exists a long tradition in many cultures of respecting the decision to end a life when one no longer believes it is worth preserving.

I would not be overly concerned at feelings of guilt, because we often feel guilt for things over which we have no control at all. It is not as though in a fit of sudden despair when you were not available to be with him he carried out this act. He thought about it over some time, calmly considered the various options and likely eventualities, no doubt including your feelings in the matter and the effect his action would have on you, and came to a certain conclusion. I think we have to respect the decisions of our children, especially when they veer away from where we would like them to go, and not feel guilt as a result of them.

On the other hand, in the case of someone on medication and with mental health problems one is always worried about how far autonomy is at issue. Did he really have the ability to take a calm and measured decision, or was his thinking unbalanced by a particular combination of drugs, or indeed their absence? In that case one might be worried about whether prompt intervention of some kind might have brought about a different conclusion. Then guilt would be appropriate. From the account you provide, though, this is not the situation, and I am sure you would understand the nature of what was taking place much better than anyone else. There is no reason why suicide need not be a brave and defiant act, and you should have no compunction at so describing it.

Let me begin by saying that I'm sorry for your loss. This must be terribly hard. And your sense of guilt is understandable. It's hard to think the thought that one's child may have done the best thing in taking his own life. But as you point out, this thought doesn't come from lack of care or lack of grief, but from the very opposite: from deep caring and empathy born of intimate knowledge of your son's situation.

There are some well-known theological and philosophical arguments intended to show that suicide is always wrong. Immanuel Kant offered one that strikes many readers -- it certainly strikes me this way -- as bordering on sophistry; I won't try to reconstruct it here, and won't recommend it as anything you need consider. Theological arguments against suicide often rest on dubious claims about the divine will and the way in which taking one's own life supposedly usurps God's perogative to decide when we die -- arguments that might well make a believer in a loving and merciful God shudder. But the sense of many reflective people is that these abstract arguments are beside the point in evaluating the actions of someone whose life promises only continued misery.

Of course, none of this is meant to suggest that we should have a casual attitude toward suicide, nor that suicide is always rational or right. But blanket prohibitions that take no account of real people's pain and prospects can't be justified and have the side-effect -- as you note -- of making those left behind feel needlessly guilty for empathizing with the person who took his life.

Philosophers are by temperament people who tend not to care too much about what "society" thinks if society's views seem ill-founded. "Society" is in no position to pass judgment on the very personal details of your son's life and death. Your words are the words of a loving parent; whatever some people may think, you aren't wrong for feeling as you do.

I would add this, however. While it certainly can be rational to commit suicide, people who are considering suicide aren't always in a good position to think about it rationally. That's for the obvious reason that many (perhaps most) people who are seriously thinking about killing themselves are depressed, and part of what depression does is make it hard to think clearly. A depressed person might believe that there's no hope, and that the pain will never end, but that's often not true. So yes: suicide can be rational. But if you know someone who's thinking about it, helping them get help may serve what they would understand as their own rational ends if only they were in a better position to see them.

Yes: when the ends that matter to one are better served by suicide than by staying alive. Jan Palach killed himself to make a powerful point against the Soviet invasion of his country -- plausibly believing that nothing else he could have done would have had as great an effect (see question 1518). Victims of the Gestapo have killed (or tried to kill) themselves in order to avoid betraying their comrades. Admiral Chester Nimitz and his wife Joan killed themselves in old age, seeking to end their lives on their own terms rather than incapacitated in some medical facility. Each of these people had an end to which they gave more weight than to their own survival -- the end of ending Soviet domination, the end of defeating the Nazis, the end of dying on one's own terms. There is nothing irrational in ranking these ends above an additional period of life for oneself.

Your question assumes that every life is worth living, and that the only point to ending one's earthly life would be to "trade up" to a presumably better afterlife. But if one's life is so bad that it is not worth living, there is no paradox in preferring oblivion. Your example of a life dominated by excruciating case might be an example where some would find life not worth living; I could imagine that slavery could so degrade those who are enslaved that their lives seem not worth living. My sense is that the prospect of avoiding future degradation or suffering gives suicide salience in cases like these, not just the prospect of enjoying a better afterlife.

Socrates' discussion of the afterlife in Plato's Apology is a fascinting philosophical discussion of possible attitudes towards the afterlife.

Suicide and highly risky acts of defiance can be, but rarely are, highly effective forms of political resistance. So one needs to analyze the conditions under which they are effective. The political suicide I remember most vividly is that of Jan Palach, a Czech student who burned himself to death with gasoline (in early 1969) to protest the Warsaw Pact invasion of his country. His suicide contributed greatly, I believe, to a deep and enduring change in attitude toward the Soviet Union on the part of young people esp. in Western Europe who, horrified by the brutality of the US war in Vietnam, had tended to view the Soviet Union as the more humane, less aggressive superpower. Many young people then did not really trust the established news media and vaguely suspected that the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia may indeed have preempted some sort of counterrevolutionary plot supported by the West. Jan Palach's suicide destroyed such excuses by focusing attention on the sentiments of young people in Czechoslovakia itself: on their passionate support of the Prague spring and on their desperation over its violent end. Jan Palach's suicide highlighted the moral character of the Soviet bloc and contributed substantially, I think, to its loss of moral credibility and eventual demise. Though Palach died long before the internet, his name scores more than 100,000 hits on google, more than Indira Ghandhi's, who died in a dramatic assassination 15 years after Palach and had been the Prime Minister of a vastly larger country for the preceding 19 years.

It is hard to think of other examples. Two Korean farmers come to mind who killed themselves in protest of increasing agricultural imports into Korea -- one in 2003 at a WTO meeting in Cancun, the other in 2005 at an APEC meeting in Busan. Certainly Lee Kyung-hae's death in Cancun was widely reported, but I do not think that it made much difference to WTO policies or even to those of the Korean government. Perhaps more successful were a number of suicides in China (end of 2003) in protest of forced expropriations that were often effected by corrupt local government agencies paying minimal compensation or none. These suicides and the anger they triggered caused the Chinese government drastically to limit the agencies authorized to order expropriations as well as the purposes by appeal to which such expropriations can be justified.

Can suicide be effective political resistance in the West Bank? I assume you have in mind an act of suicide in protest of the continued Israeli occupation and settlement policy. My sense is that, in the present context, such a suicide by a Palestinian would be drowned out in the media by all the other violence going on there. Such a suicide by an Israeli, by contrast, could have much greater impact by showing to the outside world and especially the many supporters of Israel that such support need not, and should not, condone continuation of the Israeli occupation and settlement policies. Small numbers of young Israelis have had much impact by refusing to serve in the Israeli army or by refusing to serve in the occupied territories.

To avoid misunderstanding, let me add that violent resistance to the occupation (bombings, suicide bombings, Qassam rockets) seems to me no less ineffective. Such resistance undermines Israeli opposition to the occupation and makes it easier for the Israeli government to avoid a negotiated settlement. Creative, well-organized and strictly non-violent resistance might have a chance to furnish an effective appeal to fair-minded Israelis and Western populations. But it's hard to see how such a resistance movement could evolve in the situation as it is now.