Contemplating Suicide

by Gavin Fairbairn

Suicide is devastating. It is an assault on our ideas of what living is about. In Contemplating Suicide Gavin Fairbairn takes fresh look at suicidal self harm. His view is distinctive in not emphasising external the presence or absence of a corpse, along with evidence that the person who has become a corpse, intended to do so. It emphasises the intentions that the person had in acting, rather than the consequences that follow from those actions. Much of the book is devoted to an attempt to construct a natural history of suicidal self harm and to examine some of the ethical issues that it raises. Fairbairn sets his philosophical reflections against a background of practical experience in the caring professions and uses a storytelling approach in offering a critique of the current language of self harm along with some new ways of thinking. Among other things he offers cogent reasons for abandoning the mindless use of terms such as attempted suicide and parasuicide , and introduces a number of new terms including cosmic roulette , which he uses to describe a family of human acts in which people gamble with their lives. By elaborating a richer model of suicidal self harm than most philosophers and most practitioners of caring professions currently inhabit, Fairbairn has contributed to the development of understanding in this area. Among other things a richer model and vocabulary may reduce the likelihood that those who come into contact with suicidal self harm, will believe that familiarity with the physical facts of the matter - the actions of the suicider and the presence or absence of a corpse - is always sufficient to justify a definite conclusion about the nature of the self harming act.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

an all-around enjoyable and surprisingly accessible book (i imagine accessible even to people who have no prior knowledge of philosophy or experience of suicide). however, i found myself disagreeing with the author's view more often than not, as a) a philosophy student specialising in practical ethics and philosophy of psychology, b) a person whose close friends and family members have engaged in suicidal self-harm in the past and c) someone who has attempted suicide twice before (although I guess Mr Fairbairn would classify what I believe were suicide attempts as "gestured suicides" or "cosmic gambles"). philosophically speaking, this is a good and thought-provoking work, but on a practical and personal level i can't help but feel uneasy with much of the author's thesis.