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6188 | A permanent natural order could not universalise a rule permitting suicide [Kant] |
Full Idea: The maxim of freely disposing of my life could not hold as a universal law of nature, …because no one could choose to end his life, for such an arrangement could not constitute a permanent natural order. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.I) | |
A reaction: This sort of claim brings out the advantanges of Aristotelian 'particularism' (expounded by Dancy). Obviously universal suicide isn't promising, but no one wants that. A few suicides in extreme cases will have no effect at all on the natural order. |