Well, should you be allowed to stop a suicide?
As a result, my question is, is it ever humane to not force treatment on the mentally ill
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/9302-ect-el...
Evidence in psychological science is much more superficial than in, say, physics. I don't doubt that what you say is reflected in the literature, but I do doubt that it reflects the lived reality of those so treated.
I don't remember what happened after. ECT has that effect.
A lot of homelessness is due to different mental illnesses (not discounting the societal issues, and of course the drugs then make it worse)
I really feel society sucks at dealing with the action/inaction assymetries
Unfortunately, and equally sad, many of these folks work, send their kids to school, and struggle to get themselves into a stable long-term situation.
- 582,484 total homeless
- 138,361 chronically homeless
- 122,888 total homeless reporting severe mental illness
- 48,373 total homeless victims of domestic violence
- 33,129 total homeless veterans
VA count of veteran homelessness was down 10% or more YoY in 2021 and 2022, and down 55% since 2010.[2] Veterans comprise about 10% of the total US population and 5.6% of the homeless population. Among veterans, PTSD was less of a risk factor than psychotic disorders, an equal factor to other mental health disorders, and mental illness in general was less of a risk factor than money mismanagement and could be mitigated by VA services, especially disability compensation.[3]
1: https://files.hudexchange.info/reports/published/CoC_PopSub_...
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Life is inextricably linked with death. If you have the right to live, you must also have the right to die. That belief is largely entrenched in our medical system too but stops short of doctor assisted suicide.
Am I allowed to stop that suicide? "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
I generally feel there is an inalienable right to suicide. Similar to other rights in the Declaration of Independence, this is a right that people will exercise regardless of whether it is outlawed or not and no one can stop those who wish to exercise it. It’s functionally impossible to prevent someone from committing suicide — there are countless cases where people in mental wards have a watcher-person with them 24 hours a day, less than 3 feet away at all times. And the patient will do something like suddenly sprint full speed into a wall headfirst and kill themselves.
But I also believe that the person committing suicide has the duty to cause the least amount of property damage and additional overhead for others in the wake of their death. Similarly, those who survive them have the duty to process the persons death to the best of their ability.
I would say that the gruesome suicides you asked about should be legal to stop, given a situation where the interruptor has a reasonable belief that:
1) there are more humane ways to commit the suicide which do less collateral damage, and 2) that the person committing suicide is not in such extreme pain that these options will take too long and cause the intervention to be a particularly cruel intermission.
For example, if someone has been suffering greatly from a very bad exposure to the gympie-gympie tree and they truly need the most expedient death to relieve the pain…perhaps the train really is their best option. And it’s up to the rest of society to understand and be thankful that this person found relief from their unimaginable pain and that it is now our duty to clean up and process the aftermath.
I don't understand this argument. Should we also have an inalienable right to recreational opiates?
> If someone has been suffering greatly from a very bad exposure to the gympie-gympie tree and they truly need the most expedient death to relieve the pain...
This example is also confusing to me. It sounds horrific, but it's temporary and non-terminal. Not what I'd classify as a "true need for the most expedient death." I can be understanding of the desire to die in this situation, but I cannot see how this should grant everyone the right to die in the manner of their choosing. If you truly need an expedient death, as you say, the law won't stop you.
Reducto ad absurdum: If I get poison ivy and can't sleep for a few nights, should I be legally allowed to swerve headlong into traffic?
If we should have a right to suicide, the only way I can see it enacted is through doctor assisted suicide clinics, otherwise we open the door to even greater harm from public or botched attempts.
I mean, you correctly labeled the fallacy here. Yours is a plainly terrible example. The pain of poison Ivy would clearly not be so great as to require immediate relief.
Returning to clarity: I think most reasonable people would agree that there exists pain which is severe enough to require immediate relief in the form of death. You might not, but I don’t think that’s reasonable. You say anything that’s “temporary and non-terminal” should not qualify for the right to die. I’m incredulous that you cannot imagine ANY torture so great that someone should be allowed to die rather than endure it for some indefinite amount of time.
Instead I pose a reductio ad absurdum to you: Lets say I create a machine which causes you more pain than any human has ever experienced, but does not otherwise harm you. I connect you to this machine with a button you can press to kill yourself but it will also cause 30 seconds of pain to a random person in another room. Other prisoners in your room share your beliefs and tie your hand so that you cannot press that button. You will be connected to this machine until the final year of your life, at which point you will get one final year without this pain. Should the other prisoners let you press the button?
The point here is to acknowledge that there exists a spectrum. And that somewhere on that spectrum, a person should be allowed to kill themselves even if it causes some discomfort to others. We might disagree where that point lies but my goal is for us to agree that it exists.
> Should we also have an inalienable right to recreational opiates?
This doesn’t fit my example at all. It’s possible to remove opiates from society if you spend enough on the project. Whereas inalienable rights like protesting the government, finding shelter, finding food, etc cannot be prevented before they occur, only punished after. A better counter example would be murder if you’d like to use that instead.
Instead, I’d like to ask you what your concept of an “inalienable right” is and how “finding relief for unendurable pain” doesnt fit in your definition.
An interesting corollary would be the right to self-defense. If someone unjustly attacks me and I believe the attack threatens to break my arm but does not threaten to kill me, I am allowed to use a similar degree of force to defend myself. And if, in the course of defending myself, I accidentally knock over an old lady to the ground and she dies…the attacker gets blamed for that, not me. I had a right to protect myself from the pain of a broken arm, even though it would get better eventually.
If I’m a bystander, should I prevent the person from defending themself because someone else might get hurt in the frenzy and it’s only a temporary pain of a broken arm?
Why do you blame the person who is being threatened with more pain, rather than the attacker (the gympie gympie tree)?
You bring up excellent points regarding my absurd example, but I'm actually not sure I agree there exists a pain severe enough to require the release of death. My example was meant to highlight that such threshold is quite arbitrary. Should we be allowed to kill ourselves over a shattered bone? A breakup? A hangover? A bad test score? Most people survive their encounters even with the gympie-gympie tree. Now, my opinion changes completely if the condition is terminal, but for temporary pain I'm uncertain there's an obvious answer. We haven't even considered that there may be alternatives also able to reduce suffering like painkillers (or, in the context of this thread, mental health treatment).
Another terrible example (can there be any other type on this topic?) is car crash victims. I vividly remember drivers ed, and I expect EMTs are occasionally met with pleas for death while brutally triaging their patient. I also expect a good number go on to have partial or even full recoveries and lead happy productive lives. Should EMTs abide by this wish in that moment? Should the patients prognosis influence this decision? These questions are hard for me even ignoring the affect on others. Should it affect anything if the patient has kids or is pregnant?
I think we’ll fundamentally disagree as a result of this. Like, based on each of our personal fundamental beliefs, our own ideal social rules make sense, but will not make sense to the other.
To me, if you believe a uniquely unfortunate hypothetical person should be forced by society (to the best of society’s abilities) to endure the worst torture imaginable for their entire life just because it won’t be “their ultimate cause of death”…
…that you probably are worried about something other than that persons life. Perhaps you are more concerned with their soul than their life? This is valid and given certain beliefs in afterlife/heaven/god it is the overwhelmingly more important outcome to consider! Nearly any infinite Earthly pain would be worth saving a soul from eternal suffering away from Heaven.
But I will say that I’d also like not to live in a Theocracy, where government rules are decided based on the sincere beliefs of the dominant religion. Some people do though! And it may be that’s another point where we’ll permanently be unable to see eye-to-eye despite our best efforts and intentions.
I do think it might be important to consider, acknowledge, and announce where the foundational beliefs come from which are likely to lead to radically different conclusions, even given best intentions from all involved parties.
If you are not religious, or your feelings on this topic don’t stem from your religion, I apologize for my assumptions!
To answer all your specific questions based on my personal value system:
> Should we be allowed to kill ourselves over a shattered bone? A breakup? A hangover? A bad test score?
Yes to all. But again the one ending their own life has a duty to do it in the most considerate and responsible way possible, not harming others in the process to the best of their ability.
In all these cases, it wouldn’t be the one event that causes the suicide, rather that event would be the straw that broke the camels back. A lifetime of pain and trauma would precede it.
> We haven't even considered that there may be alternatives also able to reduce suffering like painkillers (or, in the context of this thread, mental health treatment).
Given the reality that people will commit suicide whenever they want anyways, if we accept that fact as normal, it will lead society to understand that it is society’s responsibility to advertise these options and make them easily available. We should make them automatic first-line options in the minds of those who may be suffering, so that they choose those options over suicide. When society denies that suicide (or worse) is a default option for people who are suffering, we lose some of our incentive to implement the best possible remedies.
> Should EMTs abide by this wish in that moment? Should the patients prognosis influence this decision? These questions are hard for me even ignoring the affect on others. Should it affect anything if the patient has kids or is pregnant?
My value system does not lead to a conclusion where an EMT has to do anything to assist a person in their quest to end their own life. The EMT would never ever have to kill anyone who begged for death — I’m not even sure my value system would allow them to outside of a highly regulated and mildly Byzantine euthanasia process.
In general, parents have a right to suicide as well (although the state does not have to assist). What is wrong with our society that so many people feel that suicide is their best option?
Can we focus on fixing THAT?
Instead of worrying whether the person who commits suicide is selfish VS. the people of society are selfish who insist that sufferers should forever persist in their suffering for the benefit of society?
I believe if we accept in our hearts that suicide as an inalienable right, we’ll start building a better society as we accept the conclusions of the belief.
It's not people's lives I worry about so much as their agency. Suffering shrinks one's horizon. If someone's suffering can only be ended with death, then I see no reason they should be prevented from ending their life. I just think that's not often the case. A lot of things get better and a lot of things can be treated. Suicide attempt survivors rarely try again.
If someone has Issues like bad gympie gympie tree sting or radiation burns or something and they're not responding to treatment then I certainly would not prevent them from suicide. I don't think a government should either. But if a someone gets a bad grade and climbs up on the roof or has a bad breakup and tries to jump in front of a train, I'd hope a parent or friend could restrain them. I'd hope a stranger could too.
> What is wrong with our society that so many people feel that suicide is their best option?
> Can we focus on fixing THAT?
I think we should all agree on that.
Aren't the walls cushioned for exactly this reason?
"No man is an island entire of itself; every man / is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;"
Preferring a loved one to suffer, indefinitely, in order to spare your feelings... is the very definition of selfish.
If by this you mean "don't blow your brains out", then, yes, i agree, and i wonder if you're misreading me somehow in a way that suggests that I think you ought to be able to without interruption.
Otherwise, i'm having a hard time making heads or tails of what you're saying here.
If jumping in front of a train isn't clear enough for you, should we be allowed to swerve headlong into traffic?
Sure
> If you have the right to live, you must also have the right to die.
This is a non-sequitur. In fact, in so far as all human rights descend from the one in question being alive in the first place (since the dead have no rights), it makes no sense of a right to die. In the same way a right to liberty involves no right to sell one's liberty. Just like your freedom, you do not own your life. We know this because you cannot sell either your life or your freedom, thus you don't own it. Thus, despite having a right to it, you don't have the right to rid yourself of it.
Here's another example. My children have a right to live in my house and receive support from me. They have no right to either sell my house or not receive support from me. Although they have a legal right to my money and protection, they cannot dispose themselves of it.
Life and freedom are similar. They are something we enjoy and have a right to, but not something we own.
> That belief is largely entrenched in our medical system too but stops short of doctor assisted suicide.
Choosing to not undergo therapies that may or may not lengthen your life is not morally equivalent to actively choosing death.
- You can also opt out of treatment and receive terminal care.
Your superstitions should not impact my life. I will not respond again.
It's moral to ensure charges go before a court quickly, it's immoral to allow a person to languish in jail for decades without trial.
Time and effort are a components of everything including morality. To dismiss time and effort as trite or irrelevant in nearly any situation seems abusurd.
Assisted suicide is (to my knowledge) aimed at end of life patients with terminal outlooks. People who have little chance of improving their outcome.
Self inflicted suicide is a much broader category including bullied high schoolers and unlucky stock traders. People who's current situation might look grim but who could potentially change that situation.
I won't comment on the morality of either, but there's more at play than just bureaucracy.
I do not understand your point. How is that any different than, say, driving my car down the highway? The same act can be fine if I have a driving license and not fine if I do not.