more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 4679

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

Full Idea

One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious.

Gist of Idea

One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious

Source

Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §13.2)

Book Ref

Glover,Jonathan: 'Causing Death and Saving Lives' [Penguin 1982], p.174

A Reaction

A nicely chilling question. Enthusiasts want never to sleep. If I would prefer to be unconscious 20 hours every day (for a long period), there doesn't seem much point, does there?

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]