Suicide: Yes or No.

[Imposter]

Ok I think I get what heartless is saying here. I think what I have a hard time with though is the idea that people on a relative(as in varies from each individual right?) level may have a quality of life lower than zero. I guess I see as any kind of life always greater than none at all. Although by your reasoning that is just my own way of looking at it because of the life I have and circumstances I'm in.

I am curious as what you would think would effect a state of mind to make it other than normal. I gather that constant pain or paralysis wouldn't be factors right? It'd be like actual mental illness and not things that may change the way one thinks, like substance abuse or depression.

As in regards to an absolute moral law, I was saying things like that because I agree with you mostly. Man definitely cannot say this is absolute and this is what the rule will be in regards to suicide and assisted suicide. So depending on the situation is where one would make the call. 'Yes I agree to your wishes or no I don't.'...so what about like comatose patients and other euthanasia scenarios. Where we can't see that they are making a choice. Is that a negative quality of life...speaking of this reminds me of some research I heard about, doctors using scans to communicate with coma patients by telling them to think about certain things for yes and other things for no. If I remember right they thought of how they play a certain sport which illuminated certain aspects in their brain for one answer. Then they thought of like the layout of their home or work for another answer because it used a different part of the brain and it would light up differently on the scan...or something like that.

[Heartless Angel]

Ok I think I get what heartless is saying here. I think what I have a hard time with though is the idea that people on a relative(as in varies from each individual right?) level may have a quality of life lower than zero. I guess I see as any kind of life always greater than none at all. Although by your reasoning that is just my own way of looking at it because of the life I have and circumstances I'm in.

Precisely. A normal human being, operating within a normal mental state should by nature always consider living a positive thing. There are few things which can override that inherent desire to live in a person. Most are that the person has deviated from a normal mental state, causing the instinct to either cease, or go unnoticed. In these cases, they are no longer capable of logically analyzing their quality of life to come to a reasonable decision on whether or not it should continue. The other method, is using logic to suppress that instinct. This generally occurs when their life has actually become a negative, literally causing more pain than pleasure. A normal person can't fathom that, because a normal person's basic instinct tells them that life is exclusively positive. They even see positives to an overall negative life, because their survival instinct makes them value living so highly.

I am able to see from the perspective I do because suppression of instinct is a norm for me. When the logic of a given scenario dictates that my instincts are wrong, I am able to ignore them in favor of the logical conclusion. So can anyone else really, if they're trying at it. But since this is a normal state for me, I naturally think this way, objectifying life itself.

I am curious as what you would think would effect a state of mind to make it other than normal. I gather that constant pain or paralysis wouldn't be factors right? It'd be like actual mental illness and not things that may change the way one thinks, like substance abuse or depression.

Psychological disorders, depression, bipolarity, etc... these all cause deviation from a normal mental state, altering one's ability to be rational along with it. Substance abuse can also affect brain chemistry, having similar effects on one's ability to be logical. Anything that indicates a physical error in the brain chemistry, I would define as something that prevents the suicidal from making a decision to die rationally. That's not to say I would then always ultimately deny them their right to die, however. It is entirely possible that a life could be overall negative in spite of that negativity being perceived by an abnormal mental state. There it would depend on the cause of the mental state, and whether it could ever be returned to normal. If somebody has a literal psychological disorder that's incurable, the mental state it cause them to assume becomes their "new normal", the old normal being forever lost. Basically, whatever mental state is the normal 'ruler' of the body is the one that must be able to rationally reach the decision. So I suppose someone with Dissociative identity Disorder (multiple personalities) would have to put it up to a vote or something. Not sure how I'd go about resolving that issue actually...

As in regards to an absolute moral law, I was saying things like that because I agree with you mostly. Man definitely cannot say this is absolute and this is what the rule will be in regards to suicide and assisted suicide. So depending on the situation is where one would make the call. 'Yes I agree to your wishes or no I don't.'...

I fundamentally believe that people should only have a right to force their decisions to be acted upon if they've given good logical support that their choice is the right one. If I were ever in such a state, I'd probably be conducting family debates from my deathbed to determine whether or not suicide was the logical choice. If it is, I would expect my family to abide by it unless they had better logical reason for not doing so. If they determine that my logic was flawed, I would expect them to disregard conclusions I may have drawn from it. But then I also doubt the majority of the world, or even a majority of my own family would ever be capable of acting entirely within logic in spite of emotions and human nature. A lot of people just can't do that.

So what about like comatose patients and other euthanasia scenarios. Where we can't see that they are making a choice. Is that a negative quality of life...

Presumably, a comatose state is equivalent to death, having no understanding of or interaction with reality. so in this case, unless there were good reason to assume that there WAS suffering, I would say death is at best equivalent to remaining in a coma. At this point, other things must be considered. The probability of recovery, the cost of maintaining a 0 quality of life, and the wishes of those responsible for caring for the comatose victim. If a man is no longer even capable of forming an opinion, he hardly has a right to have the opinion he may have formed enforced. In the case of a comatose patient who will never recover, I'd call comatose life, and death as equal in quality, both at 0. The tiebreaker comes from everyone else, if it's better on everyone else to let the guy go, let him go.

speaking of this reminds me of some research I heard about, doctors using scans to communicate with coma patients by telling them to think about certain things for yes and other things for no. If I remember right they thought of how they play a certain sport which illuminated certain aspects in their brain for one answer. Then they thought of like the layout of their home or work for another answer because it used a different part of the brain and it would light up differently on the scan...or something like that.

If this is accurate, and there is good evidence to support comatose patients being aware on some level, then I would have to consider his quality of life unknown. In this event, I would opt to leave the man alive, at least for the time being until we can be sure of whether or not he HAS wishes.