Suicide=Selfishness?

Started by: MadHatter | Replies: 127 | Views: 6,513

Zed
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Oct 1, 2009 9:47 PM #494517
Quote from soulless
How does one's life ending, benefit others?


It almost never does. I fully acknowledge that. What I'm saying is, if he thinks that ending his life will help others, then it is not being selfish. It's only selfish if you know that what you're doing only benefits yourself and you do it anyway.
alive
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Oct 1, 2009 9:54 PM #494520
Quote from Jexsam
I never considered self-sacrifice a form of suicide. Though they both fall under "suicide" by definition, they're almost totally unrelated acts.

Suicide as I define it personally is a selfish act of an individual unwilling to believe they are able to go on in life, and therefore deem it necessary to die, almost always for everyone else's "benefit", without once considering the grief and sadness they would put those same people they're trying to spare through.

Self-sacrifice is a willful act to preserve another's life or well being through an act of willfully placing oneself in harm's way, such as pushing one person out of the way of an oncoming vehicle only to be hit yourself. Though the same ramifications of causing a great deal of pain to the one you were trying to protect exists, the reason for the act is far more valid.

In short, under a blanket definition, yes, suicide can be both selfish and selfless, but it depends entirely upon the reason(s) for the act.


Your own personal definition is irrelevant. It's the actual definition that matters.
The Wiktionary definition is: Intentional killing of oneself, as a kind of action or social phenomenon.
If you sacrifice yourself to save someone, you are clearly intentionally killing yourself, and thus committing suicide, though it is not selfish.
I honestly don't get how anyone can say suicide is exclusively selfish. Dealing with absolutes is meaningless.
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Oct 1, 2009 10:07 PM #494529
Quote from Zed
It almost never does. I fully acknowledge that. What I'm saying is, if he thinks that ending his life will help others, then it is not being selfish. It's only selfish if you know that what you're doing only benefits yourself and you do it anyway.


hmmm.. I guess you'd have to look on the situation.
Gyohdon
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Oct 2, 2009 4:36 PM #494813
Suicide is selfish, but since when is being selfish a bad thing when we're talking about lives.
Dunno 'bout you guys, but I decide whether I live or die. If I wanna commit suicide, because I don't see the point in living, that's my choice.

The real question is: Why is suicide seen as a bad thing?
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Oct 2, 2009 5:03 PM #494821
Because it usually results in huge grief and sadness from the ones that loved the guy who suicided.
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Oct 2, 2009 5:07 PM #494825
Because it denies life to a future self who may well realise that he was just going through a phase and is glad he didn't quite commit suicide because he then went on to leave a fun-filled life.
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Oct 2, 2009 8:41 PM #494892
Quote from MadHatter
Recently at our high school the mother of three kids killed herself leaving an 18 year old son a 16 year old daughter and another son who is in the 5th grade. During the day that we found out about this, one of my friends and I were talking about it and he said that he felt bad for the mother, and I said why would you feel sorry for such a selfish person. The argument went on about wether it was truely selfish to kill ones self even though that the mother had severe emotional problems.


If you kill yourself, it's probably 100% your own fault. You weren't murdered, and you deserve to die if you let any convince you of it. So I'd say she was stupid for doing it, but there could be mroe behind it.

There could be a lot of influential variables that would come into play with something like this. I don't see why it would matter though.
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Oct 11, 2009 1:52 AM #498756
A mother is living through a terrible crisis.Her 9 year old son died of cancer.Her husband died in a car accident.Her 23 year old son died in Iraq in a roadside bomb.She just got laid off.She's at risk of losing her house then she decides to kill herself.Would this be selfishness?