Suicide: The Philosophical Dimensions

by Michael Cholbi

Suicide was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2012! The Philosophical Dimensions is a provocative and comprehensive investigation of the main philosophical issues surrounding suicide. Readers will encounter seminal arguments concerning the nature of suicide and its moral permissibility, the duty to die, the rationality of suicide, and the ethics of suicide intervention. Intended both for students and for seasoned scholars, this book sheds much-needed philosophical light on one of the most puzzling and enigmatic human behaviors.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 26, 2011

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great introduction to the philosophical arguments surrounding the moral permissibility of suicide as well as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. The author, Michael Cholbi, provides a detailed, even-handed examination of the arguments on all sides of the issues, and, as is appropriate for an issue that is so complex and so controversial, he does not arrive at any over-arching, definitive conclusions. Instead, he concludes that none of the arguments either for or against the moral permissibility of suicide is logically sound, and so that means that we must tread very carefully when assessing the morality of suicide.

While I very much appreciated the rigor and thoroughness of this treatise, I was disappointed to see one type of suicide go unaddressed: the existential suicide. The best treatment of existential suicide of which I am aware is that found in Dostoevsky's novel, The Possessed (also sometimes titled Demons), in which one of the characters, Kirillov, argues for suicide both as the proper response to the existential absurdity of the human condition and as the human act par excellence: in committing suicide, the individual executes the most potent act of will possible and becomes, in a way, a god, in that the suicidal individual destroys the entire universe (at least from the suicidal person's perspective). Most probably, Cholbi did not address this type of suicide because it is exceedingly rare: this is a suicide that is carried out not due to any external factors (social isolation, major life stressors like the death of a loved one or loss of a job, etc.) or internal psychological issues (depression, schizophrenia, etc.), but rather, this type of suicide occurs as a response to the general human condition. This type of suicide is, I think, the one that Camus is referencing when he states, "There is only one truly serious philosophical question, and that is suicide." Granted that this type of suicide is far from typical, I can understand why Cholbi does not address it, but this type of suicide is, in my opinion, the most interesting because it would seem to be the clearest case of a suicide wherein the act is not carried out under the influence of typical stressors but is a suicide executed when a rational agent concludes that suicide is the most appropriate response to the human condition.

One other minor quibble: though he gives ample treatment to arguments from important philosophers like Augustine, Aquinas, and Kant, Cholbi does not engage directly with one of the most important arguments for suicide in the history of philosophy: David Hume's "Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul." While I realize that Cholbi indirectly address some of Hume's arguments in the course of examining the general philosophical arguments, it would have been enlightening to see him more directly respond to Hume.

The failure to address existential suicide and Hume notwithstanding, this book is still a thoughtful, balanced treatment of the the key philosophical and even some practical arguments on the morality of suicide and physician-assisted suicide.

[Shelby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the same author’s book on grief.

[Eddie Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice light reading for when you've finished a rough day at work