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Single Idea 4678

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 4. Suicide ]

Full Idea

If suicide is allowed, then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed, then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin.

Gist of Idea

Absolute prohibitions are the essence of ethics, and suicide is the most obvious example

Source

Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], end), quoted by Jonathan Glover - Causing Death and Saving Lives §13

Book Ref

Glover,Jonathan: 'Causing Death and Saving Lives' [Penguin 1982], p.171

A Reaction

This reveals the religious streak in Wittgenstein. I am reluctant to judge suicide, but this seems wrong. Should a 'jumper' worry if they land on someone else and kill them? Of course they should.

The 24 ideas with the same theme [attitudes to a person taking their own life]:

5228 A suicide embraces death to run away from hardships, rather than because it is a fine deed [Aristotle]
1831 Wise men should partake of life even if they go blind [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius]
14520 It is small-minded to find many good reasons for suicide [Epicurus]
3046 Stoics say a wise man will commit suicide if he has a good enough reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
20858 Suicide is reasonable, for one's country or friends, or because of very bad health [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
13298 Suicide may be appropriate even when it is not urgent, if there are few reasons against it [Seneca]
13319 If we control our own death, no one has power over us [Seneca]
13320 Sometimes we have a duty not to commit suicide, for those we love [Seneca]
4854 It is impossible that the necessity of a person's nature should produce a desire for non-existence [Spinoza]
4677 If suicide is wrong because only God disposes of our lives, it must also be wrong to save lives [Hume]
19739 The maxim for suicide is committed to the value of life, and is thus contradictory [Kant]
6188 A permanent natural order could not universalise a rule permitting suicide [Kant]
21471 If suicide was quick and easy, most people would have done it by now [Schopenhauer]
18329 Sometimes it is an error to have been born - but we can rectify it [Nietzsche]
4678 Absolute prohibitions are the essence of ethics, and suicide is the most obvious example [Wittgenstein]
23860 Even if a drowning man is doomed, he should keep swimming to the last [Weil]
19610 Religions see suicide as insubordination [Cioran]
19611 No one has ever found a good argument against suicide [Cioran]
19609 If you have not contemplated suicide, you are a miserable worm [Cioran]
23067 Suicide is pointless, because it always comes too late [Cioran]
9248 It is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will [Camus]
7984 Suicide is ascribed to depression, with the originality of the act of will ignored [Baudrillard]
4679 One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious [Glover]
7824 If suicide is lawful, but assisting suicide is unlawful, powerless people are denied their rights [Grayling]