No, not committing suicide. I was thinking about whether an individual has the right to take their own life. I often fall on the libertarian side of social issues, since I believe that, as a general rule, one should have as many freedoms as possible without injuring others or society.
To have as many liberties as possible without infringing on the liberties of others is an old chestnut, and really unenforceable when one gets to the brass tacks. It is the nature of society that the group may have to limit the individual’s liberty for the benefit of society, such as with food regulation. Greater men than I have struggled over where the line between the rights of the individual and the rights of society (or other individuals) lies, so I don’t think I could settle the question here, even if I needed to. It is clear enough from legal precedent that personal liberties mean little if the government can establish a serious interest in limiting those liberties, and if the law does not seem too unreasonable – thus we infringe the rights of employers in order to protect equal opportunity for all ethnicities.
I also believe in quality of life over quantity, which is why I believe in Death with Dignity programs for the terminally ill. However, these people are already dying, and great measures are taken to insure that they are of sound mind when they choose suicide. Though I generally believe in choice, and that in such a scenario death would be preferable to suffering, I don’t believe in rushing headlong into the void if one is otherwise healthy. You can look forward to an eternity there anyway. If I knew any suicidal people, I would try to dissuade them. I also would try to dissuade a Nazi from his views, but this does not mean I believe in making racist speech illegal. Though I believe it is wrong to try to kill oneself in the prime of life, is that a reason to pass legislation banning it?
What about seat belt laws? That is essentially what the question of suicide amounts to. Suicide bans are a case of the state protecting you from yourself. Such a statement is odious to many liberal (as in free, not necessarily leftist) people. It sends a small shiver up my spine to type it. What else will the government do “for my own good”? How do they know better than I what I need?
I believe in both seat belt laws and suicide bans. Though we often speak of separating law and morality, ultimately law carries a moral power. It normalizes certain behaviors and shapes the ideological frame in which we all operate. I, and many others raised in the years since the seat belt mandates, unthinkingly reach for the seat belt when i get into a car. It is no longer about fear of punishment, or even a rational cost-benefit analysis, but the normalization of the practice of seat belt wearing. Though the utility of the seat belt is emphasized (“It will keep you safe in an accident”) this is just a part of the justification for the social imposition of a ritual. Luckily, in this case the ritual is important for the safety of all. Similarly, making suicide illegal stigmatizes the act and normalizes the thought of suicide as unnatural. Thus, if we believe suicide is wrong, there is a compelling argument for a ban in terms of whether the law will even matter.
Is suicide wrong, though? This is a difficult philosophical question, and would require another essay, if not a library full of them. An important note, though – people who are suicidal are often so because of harsh conditions in their life. Yet, it is possible these conditions are temporary. Most of the time, we do not know what the future brings. Suicide as a reaction to existential crisis, unlike buying a sports car or traveling the world, will permanently end any potential for improvement in your life. It is like the argument in Roe v Wade about the state’s interest in banning late term abortions. The state has the interest in the potential life of the being; similarly, the state here has an interest in your potential life. Especially with suicidal teenagers, there could very well be decades ahead of them in which to grow as human beings and surpass their suicidal feelings. Suicide is a permanent solution to what is often a non-permanent problem – and this is why it should be illegal for most people. No matter how tempered the suicidal party may believe their reasoning to be, it is not really a rational decision, in the economic sense. Not because it is irrational to desire death – it may be that, after weighing the costs and benefits of living, one views death as preferable, such as with the terminally ill – but because typically one lacks the knowledge to make that decision well. A rational self-interest decision is not only one made by careful cost-benefit measurement, but by the possession of considerable knowledge about the situation (economics actually requires full knowledge of the situation). If you cannot know what your life ahead holds, you cannot make a good decision about whether or not to commit suicide.
