In
Antiquity and Modern World: Religion and Culture. pp. 279-292 (
2011)
Copy
BIBTEX
Abstract
Self destruction, inapprehensible an option as it might be, has been a challenging issue for philosophers
and scholars since the dawn of time, forcing meditation into a vigorous and everlasting debate. The
core question is: could suicide ever be deemed rational a choice? And if so, could it count as a moral
alternative, if the circumstances call for it? The Stoics from Zeno up to Epictetus and Seneca regarded
suicide as the ultimate resort, as the utmost opportunity for a rational being to maintain his virtue, when
all other bridges are burnt. For an act to be moral, it has to be deliberate, as well as the manifestation of
an established evaluative hierarchy, however spontaneous and instantaneous might the latter be. In
other words, a moral act is one that agents rationally opt for over other possible alternatives, on the
subjective basis of their alleged best interests. Modern philosophers as Tom Beauchamp, Margaret
Battin and Jacques Choron stress the criterion of rationality as a key issue regarding the ethics of
suicide. Utilizing Rorty’s second definition of rationality, the article examines whether self destruction
can be the outcome of proper evaluative assessment and deliberation, given that, as T. N. Pelegrinis
suggests, such an evaluation seems to rest on a symmetry case, which might hardly be based on sound
foundation.