One important difference to torture is that the question here is whether the agent should impose a certain pain on her-/himself for the sake of others -- not whether the agent may or should impose pain on third parties. To illustrate the relevance of this point: it makes good sense for me to believe both (a) that a person with my sort of income ought to give at least 10 percent of it toward effective poverty relief and (b) that it would be wrong for me (or anyone) to force other people with similar salaries to do so. The analogue to torture would be forcing the potential suicidee to stay alive against her/his will -- and this was not what I was advocating.

Now, do you have a duty to suffer for the sake of others' happiness? I think the answer depends on what is at stake for the others and what is at stake for you. Peter Singer has made a very convincing case for holding that you have a duty to rescue a drowning child from a shallow pond. Here what is at stake is the very survival of the child versus the dirt and unpleasantness of wading into the pond.

In some cases, the duty not to commit suicide is equally compelling. I know some such cases where the lives of several other people were -- foreseeably -- devastated beyond repair. When this is true, suicide would normally seem justifiable only if continued life would be very painful indeed. (Obviously, there is no precise exchange rate here. My point is that suicide is continuous with other cases, such as Singer's, where you might also vary the story to make the rescue progressively less important and/or more burdensome.)

A final point. In thinking about suicide and how it would affect others, one should not treat the various burdens as fixed. Continued life may seem very burdensome, but there are often ways to make it much more interesting and rewarding -- one should explore these opportunities. And there typically also are ways to make one's suicide much easier to bear for one's surviving relatives and friends.

A person who is suicidal is likely to be depressed, and part of depression is pessimism--an unfounded belief that things will not get better. So chances are that a person who sees him or herself as rational for wanting to stop living is actually irrationally imagining a future that's much bleaker than it will really be. That's not to say there's never a case in which the future is, realistically, terribly bleak. In those rather rare circumstances, is there any good reason to go on living? There are certainly considerations that could weigh against taking one's own life. Suicide has a major impact on others besides the person who dies. Perhaps a person is needed by others, or the suicide would be terribly traumatic for others. That may or may not be decisive for someone in a specific situation, but I can imagine cases where it would be a "good reason to go on living" (as you put it). It goes much further to say, like some philosophers (Kant, for example), that there's something inherently unethical about committing suicide, so that choosing to die is always wrong, no matter what.

Thank you for your question, which in spite of its brevity brings up a lot of hard issues. I won't try to answer it directly, but just add a few considerations:

1. Considering one's life to be meaningless doesn't show that it is. It may contain sources of meaning that one has not yet appreciated or even conceived of. Also, a person's like may have little meaning to *her*, but a lot of meaning to others, such as parents, friends, etc. In that case, it may have more meaning than one thinks.

2. Meaning can take a lot of different forms. People often wonder about "the" meaning of life, and this suggests that for a life to be meaningful, there has to be one big thing that is its meaning. But this is questionable. After all, in principle there could be a lot of different things that give life meaning, and they might not be intertranslatable into each other of commensurable. A walk in a forest on a crisp fall day, holding a lover's hand, appreciating a novel, having a child, all potentially give life meaning, but in quite different ways. I don't see that they have to be anything more than that.

3. Having a rational reason for doing something is not the same as having a compelling reason to do so. I have a reason to rescue dogs at the local SPCA, but it's more complex to figure out whether I should do that given other considerations.

4. On the other hand, I don't see that, unless we assume a particular religious perspective according to which you're one of God's creatures and therefore are really "His" property, you are obliged to stay living just because you are alive and well.

5. Perhaps the question then becomes, after taking Meaning off its mountain and looking for it in the small and quotidian places as I mentioned above, it's really true that one is *correct* in considering one's life meaningless. Perhaps you've been looking in the wrong places?

Mitch Green

William: I think Professor Antony's reply is deep and commendable. I would only add a minor point about self-ownership or the thesis that one's life only belongs to one's self.

"Belonging" can involve property rights (this house belongs to me) but it can also refer to what is good for a person (e.g. he belongs in a hospital, she belongs in a great school, etc). If you step back from your current state (a very difficult act of abstraction, I agree!), can you see that you belong in a caring, curative therapeutic process? I think if you can begin to begin seeing that, you can see a different path than self-destruction. In a way, part of an answer to your question will involve not just a matter of liberalism versus a conservative, paternalistic form of governance, but it will involve a philosophy of values and one's overall understanding of the cosmos. For example, one of the reasons Christian philosophers historically opposed suicide (even the dignified suicide of Lucretius which was valorized in Ancient Rome --see the early chapters of Augustine's City of God) was because they believed that the purpose of life included joy, a joy in creation and Creator. This was why some Chritians historically defined despair as a refusal of joy. Clearly this was NOT taking into account the clinical, organic roots of depression and despair, nor was this taking seriously ways in which depression or despair can be quite involuntary and not a matter of choice (refusal or acceptance). But I mention this to suggest that you might take seriously some worldviews that hold out joy as an attainable, desirable end, even if it must be sought out not just philosophically or theologically but through careful medical practice. To give a somewhat secular alternative example, you might look at John Stewart Mill's autobiography and his account of his misery and despair. He emerged partly through meditative readings of the romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. I note this as "somewhat secular," as their poetry had a rich spirituality not quite akin to secular naturalism.

William, I will try to answer both of your questions, but I especially wanted to answer the first one. I suffered from depression for most of my life, and considered, in a very personal way, the question you have asked. Forgive my presumption, but I want to make sure that, if you are asking about this because you are contemplating suicide, you know that there are some very effective therapies now for depression. I am not referring just to drug therapies, although medication was crucial (and is crucial) to my recovery; talk therapy is important too. It is not always easy to find an effective and tolerable therapy regimen -- I tried two anti-depressants before I found one that worked -- so (again, excuse my presumption) if you have tried one or even two or three that have not helped, you may need to try another. If all this is irrelevant, then good.

The ethical question you ask is a hard one, but I believe that a person who is suffering terribly and who has no reasonable prospect of gaining relief can in principle ethically end his or her life. (I suspect that people who have not experienced depression, or have only had one or two episodes to cope with can underestimate the exhaustion of dealing with the disorder on an ongoing basis. ) I don't think that marital or parental status is a consideration per se -- I think the likely impact of a suicide on everyone who will be affected must always be taken into account. I know from two cases with which I'm personally familiar that the suicide of a child is absolutely devastating to parents -- worse, I'm convinced, than loss of a child through illness or accident. Close friends and siblings can also be destroyed. Of course it is devastating, too, to partners and to children. These things have to be taken into account. If one is not completely debilitated by the depression, to the point where the rational consideration of options is impossible, then I think that the enormity of the damage that will be done to the people one cares about should motivate the depressed person to mobilize all available energy to seek treatment, rather than to end his or her own life.

I do agree with the liberal principle that one has authority over one's own life (I wouldn't formulate this principle in terms of "ownership" -- I don't think this authority is a kind of property right). That means that no one has the right to force me to adopt his or her values, or to coerce me into some life plan that I would not otherwise pursue.

But this principle doesn't mean that no one has the right to try to persuade me to adopt their values, or to pursue a different life course than the one I seem to be choosing. People who love me and care about me do have the right to try -- by non-coercive means -- to get me to see things differently. What may actually be going on is that people trying to influence me are actually trying to get me to bring to mind some of my own values or commitments -- things that might be getting neglected if I am afflicted with depression or addiction or some other motivation-affecting condition.

Sometimes a person can demonstrate respect for my autonomy by acting against some stated desire of mine. Suppose, for example, I have been in an accident and am in terrible pain. The doctor tells my husband that he can save my life and restore me to health, but only if he performs a procedure that will increase my pain. I insist that I'd rather die; my husband, because he knows me, and knows what I most deeply value, tells the surgeon to go ahead. What my husband has done in authorizing the surgeon is (a) made a judgment about my capacity for making an autonomous decision -- viz., he judged that I was not in my right mind because of the pain; and (b) answered for me in a way that he judged was the way I would have wanted him to answer, had I been in my right mind. These are very special circumstances, and require an enormous amount of knowledge, trust, and compassion. It's no doubt best, overall, if the law makes it difficult for one person to make a decision for another most of the time, but the law cannot cover every possible circumstance. Instruments like living wills and health proxies are meant to try to bring the law and the ethical facts into somewhat closer alignment in cases like this.

I am not sure there has ever been any actual solipsist. Keep in mind that a solipsist thinks that only he /she exists. There is no one else. This is as radical a view as possible, though perhaps NYU professor Peter Unger went slightly further in a paper of his called something like "Why I don't exist"! If you are a solipsist, you are committed to holding that none of us exist --you are not in communication with any person outside of yourself. The difficulty of actually holding such a position comes out in an encounter that Bertrand Russell once reported. Russell tells us that he met a woman who thought solipsism was a great philosophy and she was surprised more people aren't solipsists. The reason this might be funny is because if the woman was truly a solipsist, she would not recognize that there are any other people at all.

You may be conflating solipsism and radical skepticism. A skeptic may claim not to know about "the external world" or "other minds," but that is different from claiming that only one person exists and that person is me or, in your case, you, which means I do not exist.

Your reflections on suicide are worrisome and if this is something you are seriously contemplating, I strongly urge you to receive help asap especially as your decision on such matters may be more influenced by psychological feelings of depression and helplessness rather than, say, philosophical reflection on arguments about suicide. Some philosophers have defended the permissibility of suicide under extreme conditions (Stoics, David Hume...) while some have argued against it (Socrates, John Locke...). I think one of the best cases against suicide, and I urge you to read it sooner rather than later, may be found in the early chapters of Augustine's The City of God.

I hope Jennifer Church will also answer this one. But I don't quite see why the decision to commit suicide must be based upon the fallacy of thinking that one will be better off. The value of eliminating something bad does not have to derive from some (other) benefit achieved in the process. (See step (C) in the argument below.)

(A) S's life now involves unbearable and irremediable pain and/or suffering of some other sort.

(B) If the life is ended, so will the pain and/or suffering of some other sort.

(C) Ending unbearable and irremediable pain and/or suffering of some other sort is at least sometimes a good reason to do something.

Hence, (D) There can be a good reason to end a life of unbearable pain and/or suffering of some other sort.

I see nothing in this argument that presupposes the fallacy you mention--for example, it is not assumed that by ending the pain and/or suffering of some other sort that the one whose pain or suffering has been ended will be "better off." As you say, they won't be "better off," they will simply be gone. But the pain or suffering will also be gone, and that's not such a bad thing.

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.