Consider I have a friend(Maddy) who wishes to deliberately terminate her life. She has ruminated on the matter for no less than 5 years - ever since she turned 35. In fact, she has considered it methodically and systemically for the longest time. She has weighed the reasons to live against her own prerogative to do what she will, and she concludes that there are far many more reasons not to continue living. She is not depressed; instead, she is simply profoundly bored - she is suffering from seemingly terminal ennui. She has taken into account that some people, such as her sister, will inexorably mourn her death. However, she does not feel that their suffering will be very great.For her part, she can’t really see that she stands to lose much of anything by ending her life now. She does not value it, and in any case, if she’s dead, she’s hardly going to regret missing out on whatever it is that might have happened to her had she lived.
So. The question I'd like to posit is : 'Would it be wrong for Maddy to commit suicide? If so, why?'
The only serious philosophical question — or at least the first one — is whether to live or die. We all are faced with that choice, though most of us shirk away from the decision. And ultimately no one but a particular individual in particular circumstances can make the decision — and only for himself or herself. hat being said, boredom seems like a poor reason to kill one’s self, like a failure of courage. That life is suffering is not news — the Buddha (and he wasn’t the first) discovered that circa 3000 years ago. The question is what to do about the suffering, or with the suffering. There certainly are circumstances in which the suffering is intolerable and in which suicide seems completely justifiable. However, is her case one of them? To commit suicide because one is inordinately bored... does that even sound right? The issue isn't so simple because lines of distinction are truly blurred. Individual morality, ethics, self-right, societal views all come into question and there simply isn't one answer. It truly hinges on individual subjective perspective.
One may even go as far to argue that there is nothing selfish about suicide; if anything the selfishness comes from the side of those willing her to not to give up - they would extend her suffering just to give themselves peace of mind. Those who take their life voluntarily should be admired for their courage; they were repulsed by the futility and inelegance of our existence and chose no longer to experience it. Yet doesn't this constitute a logical fallacy since caring for a person's life is now erroneously interpreted as being selfish? Evidently, this is not a simple matter and there exists not a single all-encompassing answer.
One could ask her why she wants to kill herself. If her answer is boredom with life, then one might ask why would someone not kill themselves if they were excited? Both are psychological states and both do not guarantee a satisfactory answer as to why one should continue living. So if whatever one puts as a reason to continue living has to do with a psychological state, then such reasons to continue existing will not be satisfactory. In which case, whether one lives or dies makes no difference. But offering any psychological reason as a reason for living or dying doesn't make sense; that is, philosophically it's confused. What makes sense to ask whether living is worth it depends on religious and existential considerations. One example of what I mean by a religious consideration (but by no means the only kind of example available) has to do with seeing life as a grace from God. An existential consideration has to do with seeing the vicissitudes of life (for example boredom) as something to succeed over because it is bringing one to the point where death becomes an option. Death seen as a punctuation to life is an extinguishing not just to boredom, but to all possibilities which entail happiness. In other words, boredom is just one aspect, and a small one, to life. Other aspects are important as well. So I think that boredom here has been given a rather large place where it should not, given that other states are far more weighty.
ReplyDelete