"Rationality aside, what should we say about the morality of suicide?
...Whether we should call it a moral argument, the first one, or not, I'm not quite certain. But it's certainly an argument that gets stated all the time in this area. When we think about the legitimacy of suicide, it's common enough to have the reaction, suicide is illegitimate because it's thwarting God's will.
...Well, I think the best response to this argument was given by David Hume some several centuries ago, two and a half centuries ago, where Hume says, look, if all we've got to go on is just the idea of a Creator who has built us and given us life, we can't infer that suicide is against God's will. At least, if you've found that thought a compelling one, then why wouldn't you also find it compelling to say it goes against God's will when you save somebody's life?
.
..So, when we're about to save somebody's life, should we decide not to do that on the grounds that it must be God's will that they're going to die? We could of course imagine, when you've saved your friend's life and he says, "Oh, you thwarted God's will," what you might come back and say is, "Oh, no, no. You see, it was God's will that I save your life. And so it was God's will that you be in the situation where the truck was going to hit you unless I saved you. But it was also God's will that I save your life." And maybe the doctor should say something similar. Not an implausible thing to say. But given that that's not an implausible thing to say, why not say the same thing about suicide? It was God's will that I be in this situation, and then God's will that I kill myself. Absent any special instruction manual from God, the God's will argument cuts both ways, which is to say it doesn't give us any guidance. We don't know whether it's God's will that we act, or God's will that we don't act, absent an instruction manual from God. So, we can't conclude that suicide is obviously wrong, because it violates God's will. Well, unless you've got an instruction manual."
© Shelly Kagan
Yale Lectures on Philosophy of Death, 2007
...Whether we should call it a moral argument, the first one, or not, I'm not quite certain. But it's certainly an argument that gets stated all the time in this area. When we think about the legitimacy of suicide, it's common enough to have the reaction, suicide is illegitimate because it's thwarting God's will.
...Well, I think the best response to this argument was given by David Hume some several centuries ago, two and a half centuries ago, where Hume says, look, if all we've got to go on is just the idea of a Creator who has built us and given us life, we can't infer that suicide is against God's will. At least, if you've found that thought a compelling one, then why wouldn't you also find it compelling to say it goes against God's will when you save somebody's life?
.
..So, when we're about to save somebody's life, should we decide not to do that on the grounds that it must be God's will that they're going to die? We could of course imagine, when you've saved your friend's life and he says, "Oh, you thwarted God's will," what you might come back and say is, "Oh, no, no. You see, it was God's will that I save your life. And so it was God's will that you be in the situation where the truck was going to hit you unless I saved you. But it was also God's will that I save your life." And maybe the doctor should say something similar. Not an implausible thing to say. But given that that's not an implausible thing to say, why not say the same thing about suicide? It was God's will that I be in this situation, and then God's will that I kill myself. Absent any special instruction manual from God, the God's will argument cuts both ways, which is to say it doesn't give us any guidance. We don't know whether it's God's will that we act, or God's will that we don't act, absent an instruction manual from God. So, we can't conclude that suicide is obviously wrong, because it violates God's will. Well, unless you've got an instruction manual."
© Shelly Kagan
Yale Lectures on Philosophy of Death, 2007
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