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0.1 INTRODUCTION
In all of the different western cultural periods, suicide has been a phenomenon of
fundamental concern although, there are varied degrees of importance and concerns to
these epochs; not all have an equal reception of the discourse. Goethe seems to put this
clearly, when he says “suicide is an incident in human life which however much disputed
and discussed, demands the sympathy of every man, and in every age must be dealt with
anew”.1 The discourse has not been limited only to the western region but reasons differ
on the interest in suicide. While in Feudal Japan, suicide is an ultimate act of honour,
element of social constraint and obligation. At the heart of these concerns, are existential
characteristics; life and death, the relation of man to fellow man and the relation of man to
himself.
In the early eastern writings, the pre-occupation was primarily concerned with
with strict reference to the intentions and situations. The fundamental thoughts of suicide
to be studied as a normative action, concerned with the problem of man’s relation to God
and man’s relation to man, develops in the nineteenth century. In the hierarchy of duty
sequel to man’s obligation to his creator, is man’s right and duties to himself.
1
The International Encyclopaedia of the Social Science, 1968, ed., s.v “Suicide” by Jack D. Douglas.
1
deemed necessary which in fact is the direct and instinctual reaction to the basic drive for
world. In the attempt to resolve the hitches, arguments in favour and against suicide have
been advanced by great individuals of all times. Prominent amongst them is a great
thought took shape early in his life, in the decade from 1810 to 1820, yet until the 1850s
he was virtually unknown, and the period in which he became a powerful influence began
only in the second half of the nineteenth century. 2 Certainly, he is one of the greatest
philosophers of the nineteenth century and had more impact on literature and on people
of Plato and Kant and these influenced his philosophy to a great extent.
He retained Kant’s notion of the thing-in-itself but recognised that it could not
exist as a separate order of real objects over and above the phenomenal objects of
experience. Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer maintained a careful use of the singular rather
than plural when referring to the thing-in-itself and describes Kant’s Copernican
but leaves the impression that things-in-themselves are the real objects. He develops a
strong sense of aesthetic value, coated with Platonic cast and apprehended only by
intuition. Beauty occupies a central place in his thought just as other philosophers have
2
Christopher Janaway, The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), p.1
2
done. His aesthetic realism is a great advance over Kant's moralistic denial of an objective
and many of his discussions of individual issues in his works tend to wander and it is not
always easy to see how different arguments fit together3. Philosophers upon whom
Schopenhauer did have a strong effect, like Nietzsche and even Wittgenstein, nevertheless
could not put him to good use since they did not accept his moral, aesthetic, and religious
realism. Schopenhauer is all but unique in intellectual history for being both an atheist
and sympathetic to Christianity. Schopenhauer's system, indeed, will not make any sense
surrounds us, similarly with confusion, passion, evil which are as a result of human
desires and will. His metaphysical thought is also about the will, but now in terms of the
denial of the will. The denial of will, self, and self-interest produce for Schopenhauer a
theory both of morality and of holiness, the former by which self-interest is curtailed for
the sake of others, the latter by which all will-to-live ceases. Schopenhauer's greatest
eloquence about the evils, sufferings, and futility of life, and its redemption through self-
Representation (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1818, 1844, 1859 -- E.F.J. Payne's
English translation, Dover Publications, 1966), also On the Basis of Morality, trans. E. F.
3
0.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Life is such that everyone has to continually make decisions; some of which are
trivial, others are very much important as to affect our entire life. The conscious and
deliberate choices that characterise our behaviour are resultant from our will including
suicidal acts. Suicide is an existential concern that ferociously stares at humanity right in
the face as it threatens the co-existence of humanity starting from the individual in
question.
Schopenhauer did not believe in individual will rather he thinks they are simply
part of a vast and single will that pervades the universe as the driving force of endless
striving. He adopts a pessimistic view to life as a painful misery therefore casting lots
with death as the aim and purpose of life. Despite his profound pessimism, he vehemently
rejects suicide. It is obvious that there is a dis-harmony in this thought and that forms the
crux of the problem; how suicide can be rejected from a pessimistic view that holds death
in value.
4
0.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This essays stands to ethically evaluate the issues of suicide basically as it is a
direct assault on existence, souring the value of life and man’s ultimate duty to himself,
thus unravelling the silent and effective means of quelling this plague, which has not only
rapidly accelerated in the eighteenth century, but wax strongly even till date.
A proper formation and restructure of individuals’ conscience and ideology will be
a veritable way to achieve the reduction and ultimately, the termination of suicidal acts,
even in the worst of suffering world. This is to be done explicitly not neglecting to show
various justifications that make existence and co-existence continually meaningful and
security ramified in the acts of suicide has pervaded all facets of the world, the
importance of this work is invaluable. The work more evidently is an epiphany of the
sacredness of human life to all and sundry by reinforcing in their consciousness that life is
a gift from God and devoid of cultural or religious sentiments in moral decisions,
individuals will preserve their lives and by extension help preserve the lives of others.
5
0.5 METHODOLOGY
The revelation of suicide in the light of Schopenhauerian pessimism of this essay
is catalogued into four chapters with the tripartite methodology of exposition, analysis
and evaluation.
The First Chapter deals with the holistic understanding of suicide taking into
consideration, the problems and factors that interplay to create an ambiguous concept of
course of the project; the causes, the means and the development of the suicide through
non for an individual to issue an action. It exposes the nexus between the will and bodily
consideration his major step stone situated in his ontology of the will.
The Fourth Chapter evaluates suicide in the light of Schopenhauer alongside other
6
CHAPTER ONE
CHARACTERISING SUICIDE
1.1 PROBLEM OF DEFINITION
Regardless of the persuasive arguments advanced to justify the permissibility and
morality of suicide which has intensified in recent times, infinitesimal attention has been
and multifarious factors that interplay especially in determining the status of human
actions that qualify as suicidal. Confusions are generated on the very nature of suicide
because difficulties emerge when we even attempt to characterize suicide precisely and
attempts to do so introduce intricate issues about how to describe and explain human
actions. More so, identifying a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for suicide is
especially challenging and it has compounded the task right from the ancient to present
times.
Among the many factors there are that affect the understanding of suicide, is the
effect of social and traditional views essentially to the development of suicide within a
culture. Beliefs Traditions, Value system usually form the bond and the ideology of a
community, then its definition obliterates any form of laudable action from the realm of
society, while enormous merit is accorded being buried with one’s spouse, then, the act of
ending one’s own life so as to be buried with one’s spouse may not be termed suicidal. 4
This point is predicated upon social convention and cultural relativism from which
4
Tom Regan, ed. Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 2nd ed. (New
York: Random House, 1986), p.79
7
cultural relativists see morality as a product of culture hence other cultures are not wrong
but different.5
Another factor that fuels the definitional problematic of suicide is subjectivism
which comes to the fore especially in assessing the intention for suicide. The intention for
suicide is subjective and latent and this denies the possibility of a precise evaluation or
knowledge for suicide. An act of self-termination for personal relief or one’s own sake is
labelled as suicide while on the contrary if done for the sake of others, it assumes the state
of sacrifice usually seen as heroic. The question that comes to fore is, what would be the
status of the following actions either as suicide or sacrifice; a person who stops using life
support machine in order to relieve the family of huge financial expenses OR a terrorist
who decides to blow up himself in the midst of hostile powers for the sake of his cult or
nation, OR a confidant who takes lethal poison to avoid divulging information / secret to
some external force? The problem arises owing to the fact that the intention for suicide is
not fully apprehended by any other person other than the individual involved in the very
of place of an action if accepted by the Divine.6 This invariably means that ‘X is good
because God desires X and bad if God detest X’. The appeal to the dictates of the divine
especially as expressed in some kind of Divine law is responsible for the worthiness or
5
Harry J. Gensler, Earl W. Spurgin and James C. Swindal, eds., Ethics: Contemporary Readings (New York:
Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2005), p.14
6
Ibid.
8
it would be determined by the acceptance of the Divine. Austerity and self-denial are
exceptional to religion as principled ways of life but if taken to the extreme as in the case
would it count as suicide or natural death? Sacrifice is another way of life encouraged by
religion and as we have tried to develop the problem above, the question would be the
same if self-death under the guise of sacrifice would be excused as being suicidal?
All of the above factors shape the problem of grasping the very nature of suicide.
Be that as it may, we shall proceed in a conceptual fashion to analyse suicide and in the
slipperiness. Suicide is a spinoff of two Latin words, ‘sui’ which means ‘of oneself’ and
‘cide’ which means ‘a killing’. The term indicates self-killing usually meant to convey
questions about suicide, secondly, the idea that suicide is a way to avoid pain and
indignities in life and thirdly, the attempt to give human beings absolute freedom.8
Perlin argues that suicide is not a disease but a form of behaviour that is influenced
psychological, social or medical theory suffices for its comprehension and prevention. 9
7
The International Encyclopaedia of the Social Science, 1968, ed., s.v “Suicide” by Jack D. Douglas.
8
Regan, Matters of Life and Death, p.79
9
Seynour Perlin, A Handbook for the Study of Suicide (New York: Oxford University Press. 1975), p.147
9
Definitions of suicide tend to vary with the social approval or disapproval of suicide and
one prevailing definition is that suicide occurs when there is an intentional or deliberate
Presumably, we can agree that all three are cases of self-killing but from the
definition of suicide only (1) is a case of suicide while the other two would count as
accidental death. The first case clearly shows a profession of an intention to death because
of a misfortune, hence the deliberate self-extinction while the other two cases are only a
result of accident. There is the distinction between self-killing as suicide and accidental
death, thus what appears essential for a behaviour to be suicidal is the individual’s
intention; the individual in question chooses to die. It follows thereof that suicide as an
attempt to inflict death upon oneself is intentional rather than consequential in nature. 11
Apparently, an act would be suicidal if one acts (or refrains from acting) in such a way as
to bring about one’s own death. In other words, suicide should not be equitable with
wrongful self-killing in the way that murder is equated with wrongful killing of another.12
10
Regan, Matters of Life and Death, p.79
11
Gavin Fairbarin, Contemplating Suicide: The Language and Ethics of Self Harm (London: Routledge,
1995), p.58
12
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2009 ed., s.v “Suicide” by Michael Cholbi
10
The principle of intention and inclination to death is one that causes an action to bear as
suicide.
Contrary to this understanding and explanation of suicide as an ‘intentional and
deliberate’ act, is the definition issued by the renowned French sociologist, Emilie
Durkheim.
The term suicide is applied to all case of death resulting directly or
indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself which he
knows will produce this result.13
because it appeals to the presence of an intention to die. If we cast our minds back to the
problems of the definition of suicide, the intention for suicide is subjective and latent
hence cannot be easily verified. This forms the basis for Durkheim’s rejection of the first
definition.
Durkheim’s concept of suicide albeit it relinquishes the primacy of intention
substitutes it for the knowledge of self-death by the individual indulging in certain actions
‘... which he knows will produce this result.’ This substitution of epistemology for
for a modification of definition of the concept based on the fact that intentions cannot be
accurately ascertained.14
But on the other hand an acceptance of this definition allows for a vulnerability to
obvious counter examples. An individual, who knows the health risk of smoking or
skydiving, engages in these behaviours and dies as a result could be said to be causally
13
Emilie Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, trans. John A. Spaulding and George Simpson (New
York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005), p. xlii
14
Regan, Matters of Life and Death, p.81
11
responsible for his / her death but not to have committed suicide. If Durkheim’s concept of
suicide is to be accepted, then the mere fact that the individual knows the risk of such
friends and the explosion kills him in the process, it does not still count as suicide. The
see in wars or suicide bombings; but if Jack had thrown himself on the grenade, it was
because he wanted to save his friends and does not propose to death. This rules out the
action of Jack as suicidal because he may have believed that, it is not his death that saves
his friends but his covering the grenade; perhaps with luck he might have survived while
self-inflicted death, but it is really knotty and with shortcomings. For what is it to intend
by one's behaviour that death result? Scholars have argued that the nature of the intention,
which has to do with the precise reason for the action, as well as the circumstances under
which the intention was nurtured should be considered even though this definition does
not take that into consideration. From the above scenario, would it be the case that Jack
committed suicide?
Usually there is a distinction between intentional self-killing for self serving
purposes and self caused death for reasons other than the self. This arouses the problem of
sacrificial death if it is indistinguishable from suicide or not mainly because both involve
12
The key notion responsible for our not classifying some intentional self
killings as suicides may be sacrifice. Perhaps those who sacrifice their
lives are not conceived as suicides for an interesting reason: Because
such actions have from the suicide point of view, plausible claim to
justification for other regarding, not self regarding reasons, we exclude
these sacrificial acts from the realm of the suicidal. We may not regard
them as actually justified, but rather as justified from the viewpoint of
the agent who causes or perhaps fails to prevent his / her own death.15
In any case of self killing therefore, the reason for the act is considered and
following from Beauchamp’s assertion, ‘... other regarding not self regarding reasons’
might possibly be a defining factor to discern between suicide and sacrificial death. Both
sacrificial death and suicide involve an intention but the difference lies in the motives or
aims that drive that intention. It is clearly seen that, in suicide the intention is to
exterminate the self from its present existential state, thus having its ends for the ultimate
purpose for the self. But this is antagonistic to sacrificial death which its intention is not to
die per se for the self’s emancipation but for other selfless reasons.
Another challenge in the effort to cognize suicide is the problem of treatment
refusal, which is apparent in hospital life. This problem is stimulated chiefly by the ‘right
to refuse treatment’; well informed patients with decision making capacity have an
autonomous right to refuse and forego recommended treatments. But following upon their
productive of death can be used also to the ends of suicide. ‘Pulling the plug on one’s
respirator is not relevantly different from plunging a knife into one’s heart, if the reason
15
Richard Brandt, “The Morality and Rationality of Suicide”, in Seynour Perlin, ed., A Handbook for the
Study of Suicide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), p.101
13
for putting an end to life is identical in the two cases.16 The point of Beauchamp is that, if
(for example) a seriously wounded soldier turns his gun to himself and intentionally kills
himself, that would be suicide; and if a patient who suffers a terminal illness – (renal
failure), refuses another dialysis and dies as a result, it would also be suicide.
The logical underpinning here is the active and passive distinction of suicide. The
former takes the active and the latter, passive. The terminally ill patient might be using the
passive means as a socially acceptable way of ending it all because the passive means
intention, not all naturally caused death can be eliminated from considerations as suicide. 17
Thus the active as well as the passive means are cases of suicide, so people of this
category cannot be exculpated from suicidal act; the intention is present even in the
passive means.
An act is not suicide if one is caused to die by a life threatening condition that is
not brought about through one’s own actions. 18 To cause one’s own death in order to die is
tantamount to killing oneself, but to have death caused by some ailing predicament stands
out from being suicide. In exercising the right to refuse treatment, the individual evidently
causes his death and that fulfils the second element above, but it does not fully explain the
individual’s intention to die. The refusal of treatment need not necessarily be for self
regarding reasons but other, and if this is the case, then the problem is complicated
because, the refusal of treatment for other regarding reasons other than the self would
16
Joel Feinberg, “Introduction to Sanctity of Life” in Tom Beauchamp, William Blackstone and Joel
Feinberg (eds.), Philosophy and The Human Condition (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, 1980), p.29
17
Regan, Matters of Life and Death, p.86
18
Ibid.
14
transverse with the nature of sacrificial death. On the whole, a greater willingness is
exhibited to categorize self killings intended to avoid one’s misery as suicides than self
the individual in question for self reasons. But some scholars would like to add another
element so as to get the concept clearly. Apart from the individual causing his own death,
the action would not be suicidal if the individual is coerced to bring about his own death.
Typically, coercion denotes interference by others to carry out an action either through
force or threat. Based on the issue at hand, we can imagine a situation whereby a spy
threatened with torture unless he relinquishes a vital military secret, would not be spared
so he goes ahead to poison himself. Some would vie that he did not commit suicide
act was suicide from whether its motives were admirable or odious,20 Beauchamp upon
critical analysis avers that, the sacrificial nature of an action is not a legitimate reason for
excluding it from suicide because there is an intention to die. The point here for
Beauchamp is the distinction between the acts as suicide from its motives; an act can be
suicide illustrates the frustrations of such an endeavour owing to the unclear notions of
19
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2009 ed., s.v “Suicide” by Michael Cholbi
20
Ibid.
15
suicide apparently replaced by the unclear notions of intention and coercion.21 On the one
hand is the principle of intention and on the other hand is the principle of coercion; not
until these subjects are clarified, a seeming exactitude in the conception of suicide might
not be possible. However, the imperative aspects of an adequate analysis of the ordinary
language concept of suicide have been laid down to transmit the discussion on the
assessment of suicide; an intentional and non-coerced self killing in which the conditions
have advanced one step towards that period we shall be no more. 23 There are anomalies in
the usual length of life of a man and one factor among many that counts is suicide. The
previous consideration centred on the concept of suicide, thus launches the present agenda
of surveying the aetiology of suicide. The causes of suicide are multifarious but all of
Psychological cause
Sociological cause
21
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2009 ed., s.v “Suicide” by Michael Cholbi
22
The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 1998, ed., s.v “Suicide” by James Fieser, and Bradley Dowden
23
Robert Fellowes, A Brief Treatise on Death: Philosophically, Morally and Practically Considered
(London, 1805), p.6
16
PSYCHOLOGICAL CAUSE
Psychological cause of suicide would involve individuals who suffer from mental
or psychological chaos and often end up committing suicide. It is not the case that these
disorders are directly productive of suicide but gradually and ultimately puts the
individual in a state of imbalance; for example, serious depression can lead to specific
changes of the DNA in the human brain which leads to pathological or psychological
disturbances. When the individual is at this stage he seeks for some kind of immediate
relief from the anguishing situation, thus a subscription to suicide. Patients in mental
hospital do have particularly high suicide rates especially those with depressive
enlisted but these problems range mainly from Depression, Manic Depression and
Melancholic Disorder.
SOCIOLOGICAL CAUSE
Emilie Durkheim in his book, Suicide discusses the sociological tinge of suicide.
The basic theme of Durkheim’s work is that suicide which appears to be a phenomenon
structure and its ramifying functions.25 The currents of suicide would be related to social
concomitants to understand and place any individual suicide in its proper aetiological
24
L. I Dublin, Suicide: A Sociological and Statistical Study (New York: Ronald Press, 1963), p.171
25
Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, p. xiii
17
Durkheim points out that religion plays an important role and has a great influence
on suicide rates. This is evident in religions whose practitioners have taken their doctrines
to the extreme thus becoming fundamentalist or fanatics and would lay down their lives at
any cost.
Suicide rates have been noticed to be lowest in Catholic countries but are at the
His point is that, the stronger the forces that integrate the individual into the collective life
(the society), the lesser the suicide rates compared to that of high sate of individualism. If
religion protects man against the inclination for self destruction, it is because it is a society
and this society is characterized by the constellation of a certain number of beliefs and
practices common to all the faithful, traditional and binding on them all.27
26
Ibid., p.xvi
27
Ibid., p.125
18
ECONOMY AND SUICIDE
The individual’s need and satisfaction is usually regulated by the society. Suicide
rates tend to rise in times of economic recession and depression. Durkheim noted first that
financial crises led to an immediate rise in the suicide rates, documenting this with the
examples from Vienna 1873, Frankfurt- on – main 1874 and Paris 1882, and when the
anxieties, unattainable wants, intoxication religious cruelty which brings suicide nearer
especially to those at the top stratum of economic system. Suicide rates rose during the
world exposition in 1878 and 1889; they stimulate business, bring more money into the
country and are thought to increase public prosperity, especially in the city where they
take place. Yet, quite possibly, they ultimately take their toll in a considerably higher
number of suicides just as increased industrialization in Italy after its unification was
difficult, they should diminish observably as comfort increases but this is not the case.
Durkheim detected that what proves more convincingly that economic anguish does not
have the frustrating influence often attributed to it, is that it tends to produce the opposite
effect. There is very little suicide in Ireland, where the peasantry leads so wretched a life;
28
David Leister and Bijou Yang, The Economy and Suicide: Economic Perspective on Suicide (New York:
Nova Publishers, 1997), p.14
29
Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, p.205
30
Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, p.205
19
disaster and prosperity, if there are increased suicide rates, it is because there are crises
and the immediate result is usually a reduction in strength of social integration and order
one of the social factors in the aetiology of suicide. The suicide rates of the unmarried
persons are usually high than those of who are married. Evidently, marriage entails all
sorts of burdens of which the single person is autonomous but marriage has a sheltering
influence against suicide because it incorporates the individual into a stable social
relationship. Suicide varies with the degree of integration of the individual into the social
groups which he belongs; marriage is one means of attaining this integration and it
strengthens the ties between the individual and the society. Durkheim also noted that
marriage generally has an advantage of physical and moral constitution somewhat better
used by Durkheim as a means of demonstrating the key impact of social factors on our
personal lives and even our most intimate motives.” The society cannot be isolated as it is
a strong determiner in the aetiology of suicide and “the society is not only something
attracting the sentiments and activities of individuals with an unequal force, it is also a
31
Ibid.
20
power controlling them; there is a way this regulative action is performed and the social
suicide rate.”32
There are countless of reasons for which people commit suicide; suffering, grief,
unrequited love, to escape punishment, financial loss, to restore honour, belief that life has
no inherent value (pessimism, absurdity and nihilism) to mention a few. To bring about the
actualization of suicide, different methods are employed and usually vary from culture to
culture. Hanging oneself amongst other means is the mostly used method hence assumes
discussed about suicide in two of his works – ‘Phaedo and Laws’. He claimed that suicide
is disgraceful and shameful and that its perpetuators should be buried in unmarked graves
the means to living a naturally flourishing life are not available to us, suicide may be
justified. Seneca argues that mere living is not good but living well. Accordingly, the wise
man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can, he will always reflect concerning
the quality and not the length of his life, as soon as there are events bedevilling and
which has as its nucleus the verity that individuals should exercise their liberty and
32
Ibid., p.201
33
Microsoft Encarta, 2009 ed., s.v. “Suicide”, by Alan L. Berman
34
Joseph Omoregbe, Knowing Philosophy (Lagos, Joja Press Ltd, 1990), p.56
21
freedom, as well as to be self determining agents making personal evaluations and choices
in all circumstances, probably, even when their interest is in jeopardy, but most
history of suicide. Despite the fact that no passage in the scriptures explicitly condemns
suicide, Christian doctrine throughout the ages has held that suicide is morally wrong.
Notable personalities in the middle ages especially in the development of the Christian
understanding and prohibition of suicide are St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas,
prohibition of suicide. The law, rightly interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says
‘Thou shall not kill.’ This is proven especially by the omission of the word ‘thy
neighbour’35 thus giving an elasticity to the application of the law to both the self and
specifically to the proscription of suicide on three grounds. On the first level, suicide is
contrary to natural self love whose aim is to preserve us. Since everything naturally loves
itself, there is a resultant effect which is the natural preservation of the self but suicide is
contrary to the inclination of nature and charity. 36 Secondly, he commends that suicide
injures the community which an individual is a part and thirdly, suicide violates our duty
35
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2009 ed., s.v “Suicide” by Michael Cholbi
36
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Vol 1 (New
York: Benziger Brothers Inc., 1974), p.1469
22
to God because He has given us life as a gift and in taking our lives we violate his right to
the modern and enlightenment thought on suicide. Whereas Christian theology has
understood suicide as "an affair between the devil and the individual sinner"38
from facts about individuals, their natural psychologies, and their particular social settings.
This shift was not without the thoughts of notable personnel like David Hume, Immanuel
Kant, Jean Paul Sartre and Emilie Durkheim. David Hume collaborates with this new
approach with a direct mugging on the Thomistic position in his unpublished essay On
suicide.
The thesis that suicide violates our duties to self because misfortunes and ill health
can make life sufficiently miserable, and continued existence is worse than death; thus
suicide may be free of imputation of guilt and blame. The modern development was
definitely not univocal in its comparatively permissive attitudes towards suicide but also
had another wing which had a severe carriage on suicide. This is clear in the contributions
intention of the individual is informed by the autonomy of choice faculty otherwise called
the ‘will’ and this is also evident through the history; perhaps the most prominent theme in
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid., p.300
23
existentialist writing is that of choice, the freedom to choose in fulfilment of our intention.
The Syrian Islamic scholar, Muhyid-Din Abu Zakariyya ibn Sharaf al-
Nawawi (1233 - 1277) says “Intention is the measure for rendering actions true, so that
where intention is sound, action is sound, and where it is corrupt then action is corrupt”.
This sets the basis for the next agenda which is an examination of the Will especially as it
is non – negligible in human acts and allows for responsibility of actions carried out by us,
24
CHAPTER TWO
PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WILL
The German philosopher Edmund Husserl founded the 20th-century movement
reference to objects outside itself; a reflection on the content of the mind to the exclusion
of everything else.39
The application of the term in affinity with the Will already suggests what the
whole discourse entails. Therefore Phenomenology of the will centres on the study of the
Will in relation to its manifestation through human actions primarily as both do not
belong to the same realm. The discourse is encapsulated in more vivid and strict terms as,
an attempt to understand the essence of the will, and just as modern existentialists would
give us a hint that ‘there is no fixed human essence structuring our lives and that our
choices are never determined by anything except our own free will’.
2.1 NATURE OF THE WILL
The task of defining or describing the will may possibly be thought of as having
no need of engaging in it being that the word is generally understood, but this would be
the case if philosophers, metaphysicians had not given their words or thoughts about the
will, thus creating diverse ideologies about it. In tilting the sphere of clarity, which is the
of the mind by which it is capable of choosing; the will therefore is that, by which the
mind chooses anything.40 Unlike the body or other physical objects which are rather
concrete and can be perceived at least through the five senses, the will is abstract but is
39
Microsoft Encarta, 2009 ed., s.v. “Phenomenology”, by Hubert L. Dreyfus
40
Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will (Grand Rapids MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 200), p.2
25
sensed through its expression in the choice of the mind; an act of the will is synonymous
transforms in the acts of choosing, rejection, that is, the connectedness between the will
divorced from each other, human actions fall apart conceptually thus it splits into acts of
the will identifiable only in introspection. 41 Between the will and human actions, there
exists a causal relation such that the former which belongs to the sphere of the mind,
informs the actions that are exhibited through the body. The dualism of Descartes would
not properly account for this relation because for him the mind and the body are two
distinct substances – mental and physical which exist independently of each other and
have completely different attributes.42 This implies that willing which is a conscious act
remains in the mental state and finds no display through a physical substance. But it is
evident that the workings of the mind influences the workings of the body and vice –
the body as two complete substances, each of its own account and are contingently united,
differs from the Aristotelian solution of the mind and the body as two incomplete
substances in which their fusion originates a complete substance. The latter account
rightly explicates the mind’s perception of the body’s need or lack thus the will is the
41
Ilham Dilman, Freewill: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 1999), p.119
42
William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, 2nd ed.
(Wadsworth Group: Thomas Learning Inc. 2002), p.237
26
mental component that moves one into action. So if an individual wills that a table be
drawn close to her, she would not expect to do it mentally as to expect a physical effect,
rather through an external object of the will, which in this case could be her hand, the
table is drawn close to her and the will is manifested in this action.
The point here is that, one’s will (in the forms of resolutions and intentions) can
only be seen from the outside, as well as not something the individual herself sees from
the inside, although an intention can exist without the action exercised but without
reference to the action, it is null and void. This gives a backing to our understanding of
suicide in the previous chapter as it clearly shows that the act self killing is a
manifestation of the individual’s will in question to terminate his own life; the will is
something inward but finds its expression in the efforts and actions of the human person.
Aquinas characterizes the will as ‘rational appetite’ because, its desire is usually in
response to the consideration of reason and reason exercises some judgement on our
usually one set of values that weighs another, so in the option between alternatives, the
judgment we exercise are resultant of our values (reason) which thereof guides the will
towards its ends; reason becomes an affective character.44 The will has the capacity to
necessary, that is as good, but if the case is contrary and the will is not in itself in
43
Ilham Dilman, Freewill: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction, p.91
44
Ibid., p.92
27
conformity with reason, then actions that are considered as objectively necessary become
subjectively contingent.45
2.2 AUTONOMY AND CAUSALITY
The problem of freewill and its opposing doctrine determinism is one of the key
issues in philosophy which has arisen in history especially whenever people suspected
beyond their control. People have wondered at various times whether their actions might
conditioning.46 This has prompted questions as to what is the place of freewill in our lives
if our actions are the result of some other cause. Do our desires make us free? In the
the act.47 Although freedom is usually used in significations which seem to be widely
different, its relation to the will is the context here, thus freewill is the ability of rational
species to effect control over their actions, decisions or choices, to the point of being held
responsible for their choice. There are no doubts about the reality of a will in every
individual especially as it bothers on the capacity to choose but the principle of causality
45
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), p.24
46
John Martin Fischer et al. Four Views on Freewill (USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007), p.5
47
D. D Whedon, The Freedom of the Will As A Basis of Human Responsibility and A Divine Government
(New York: Carlton and Porter, 1864), p.23
28
accounts that every act has a cause and consequently has a necessary connection to its
cause. For the will to be free, means it must not be subject to compulsion or causality but
the will is subject to it as being part of the natural order, then how do we come to terms
everything that happens in the world including all human thought and action is subject to
causal laws and this involves the necessitation of effects by an antecedent causal
condition.48 The difficulty that resides here follows from the fact that freewill seems
impossible if our actions are causally necessitated and at the same time it also seems
impossible if our actions are not causally obliged, and if both claims are correct then
that an individual must necessarily be the ultimate and originating cause of his actions
and only then can we account for moral responsibility. If determinism is true and we have
no freewill, then the agent who engages in suicide is only passive in his actions; but is
determinism true?
A different account of the freewill debate is posed by those who are called the
compatibilists and they maintain that freedom and moral responsibility are compatible
with determinism. They propose one of their core arguments that, it is only a mere
48
Michael McKenna and Paul Russell (eds.), Freewill and Reactive Attitudes: Perspectives on P. F
Strawson’s ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2008), p.1
29
confusion to suppose that freedom implies the absence of causal necessitation but what
plausible because it looks so clear that we are sometimes free and morally responsible for
our actions and determinism could turn out to be factual basically because all events are a
of our actions, to be responsible for what we do so that we can be blamed or praised for
what we do.”51 Based on this, Descartes opines that, what the mind wills is determined by
the mind itself in accordance with its own wishes and judgements, thus the will is self
determined and free. Hume’s answer centres on the conviction that being subject to
causality is not being subject to compulsion. Kant’s explanation is that when the will is
something external as such it cannot be free; but once it is at one with reason and
determined by it, it is self determined and therefore free. Despite causality which we are
subject to even though we are intentional beings, it is we who determine our actions
rather than being understood as an effect of causes external to our will, so that the will
itself is not subject to any causality. To say we have freewill is to say that we are
intentional agents capable of choices and decisions, and G. E Moore insists that we have
the capacity to choose and when we do so, it is we who determine our action. He argues
that our conviction of freewill implies that there are many occasions when we could have
49
Fischer et al. Four Views on Freewill, p.2
50
Ibid., p.44
51
Ilham Dilman, Freewill: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction, p.73
30
done something other than what we did, that is, what we did not do 52. In like manner the
individual who conceives of suicide and decides to actualize it has the option to act other
wise and not terminate his life because of the reality of freewill inherent in him; he takes
responsibility for his action and has an explanation why he chose not to commit suicide
of freewill in the face of an argument from causality that threatens it. Since we opine for
the reality and possibility of freewill and the acts of willing, then it is pertinent to question
the source of all virtues and vices exhibited by individual persons; where do they do
originate from if not the will? We have not taken a stand on the nature of suicide, whether
it is a virtuous act or an evil act but whatever be its category, it must be determined by
forces contend; one good and the other evil such that when someone does a laudable
action, the forces of good is thought to outweigh the forces of evil and vice-versa.
In contrast to this understanding, is that of Kant’s moral theory which shoots from
the claim that nothing in the world ... can possibly be conceived which could be called
good without qualification except a good will.54 There are many qualities, concepts that
worth to be called good but devoid of a good will, they cannot be any good. For example,
52
G.E Moore, Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947), p.131
53
Although the individual be dead already, it does not exclude the fact that he has an explanation for his
deeds; the only difference in this circumstance is that, there is no one to listen and comprehend his
explanation.
54
Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, p.340
31
we can imagine the case of a scoundrel who possesses qualities of intelligence, courage,
power, would only augment the evil he could do rather than improve his goodness. Unlike
positive qualities, the goodwill is always good under any circumstances and since it is at
the centre of morality, the question is how do we identify such a will especially in the
good will; firstly, it should not be judged from what a person accomplishes. In a situation
for example, where Janet risks her life to save a drowning child but did not achieve her
goal, the goodness of the will stimulating these action sparkles clearly despite the
apparent failure. It supposedly means that the intention to produce good consequence will
suffice to account for a good will since the actual endeavour did not serve the purpose.
But a keen scrutiny of the intention based account also reveals its insufficiency to serve as
good will because we can intend to do the right action for morally tainted reasons or self
centred reasons, so merely intending the right action cannot be the basic criterion for
moral goodness neither will acting on the basis of sentiments or feelings or what Kant
calls inclination especially that our feelings are not predictable and static.
Having eliminated actual consequences, intended consequences and feelings or
inclination, we can affirm that goodwill is a will that is moved to act from moral duty and
concerned to do what is right from the sole motive that, it is the morally right action to
perform.55 This clearly shows the distinction between deontological ethics (from duty or
55
Ibid., p.341
32
will is precisely the one who performs good acts simply because it is his duty to perform
them despite his inclination to do otherwise. In other words the source of all virtuous
apposite through logical reasoning to say that the source of all vices in human endeavour
is a privation or distortion of the good will. Evil is not an independent reality but simply
the absence of good, in like manner, an evil will is not substantial in itself but a dearth of
goodness so that whatever is contrary to the good will is evil. It is not out of place to ask
how to be sure of the good will that is, against what background is the good will formed?
As we know, the morally good will is one that performs actions out of a sense of duty but
our duty is in conformity with a natural law, it lies in obedience to a particular principle
regardless of inclination, self interest or consequences. Kant calls this supreme principle,
the Categorial Imperative with its first formulation as I ought never to act except in such
a way that my maxim should become a universal law. 56 This means that for each act we
are about to actualize, we can ask – what is the rule authorizing this act and can it become
a universal rule for all human beings to follow? For example if we deceive another into
believing our story so as to get our ends, can deception be made a universal law that all
human race can follow when in dire need of something? Surely, the answer is in the
56
Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis:
Bobbs - Merill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1959), p.39
33
Finally, the good will confers on everyone a challenge to act from moral duty in
conformity with the natural principle towards others. In terms of our discourse, everyone
has a duty towards the suicidal individual, to convince and counsel the agent on the value
and worth of continued life and the call of this moral duty demands that this is done at all
not out of place – do we not have a duty to ourselves, duty to preserve our lives?
2.4 AUTONOMY AND PERMISSIBILITY
The principal issue surrounding this section borders on the moral permissibility of
suicide taking into consideration the conditions, if any, under which suicide is morally
justified or will the principle of rational autonomy satisfy as the condition for the
permissibility of suicide?
For libertarians, suicide is morally permissible because individuals enjoy a right to
suicide which is rightly called a right of non - interference 57 therefore others are morally
barred from interfering in a suicidal behaviour. Some are of the opinion that individuals
have no moral duty not to commit suicide, that is, suicide violates no moral duty, and on
the other hand others are morally obliged not to interfere in a person’s suicidal behaviour
and are morally required to assist them.58 A popular account for the claim that we enjoy a
right to suicide is that we own our bodies, hence we are morally permitted to dispose of
them as we wish and this follows from the freewill of the human person to choose and act
freely accordingly.
57
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2009 ed., s.v “Suicide” by Michael Cholbi
58
Pabst Battin, The Death Debate: Ethical Issues in Suicide (Upper Saddle River N.J: Prentice Hall, 1996),
p.163
34
Our freewill is bound up with our living in a human world characterized by the
significance we find in them. Good and evil belong to this world and these form an
integral part of the significance which characterizes our actions and intentions, thus we
choose to put up actions that are good or bad in how we choose to live and / or what we
do in particular situations. Are there conditions under which suicide is morally justified or
in other words do we have a duty to preserve our lives? Is suicide rational or prudent?
These questions unfold as a result of the overemphasis on the human person to act
freely as it is the case of libertarianism, but it is only rational to note the limitations of
human freewill. The words of Kwame Nkrumah (1909 -1972), Ghanaian President that
“without discipline true freedom cannot survive” become worthwhile. The discipline of
our freewill can be understood especially with recourse to the universal principle (the
Categorial Imperative) and the good will, which will also serve as an arbiter to attempt an
inclination to do so but if this is the case, the preservation of one’s life has no moral worth
because it is done in conformity with duty but not from duty59 and that is why when
adversity and suffering should take away the taste of life, death is subscribed to as some
form of relief but ‘if an unfortunate man, strong of soul and more indignant about his
fate ... wishes for death and yet preserves his life without loving it, not from inclination or
fear but from duty, then his maxim has a moral content.60
59
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, p.11
60
Ibid.
35
A suicidal act is not an action from duty especially because an action from duty
has its moral worth not in the purpose to be attained by the act, but in the maxim in
accordance with which it is decided upon, from respect for the law – the categorial
imperative. Our common human reason also agrees completely with the practical
application of this law especially in determining the second question, is suicide rational or
prudent? By way of recapitulation, the universal law is ‘I ought never to act except in
such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law’ and this
and at the same time, a spinoff from a non-good will. If suicide were to be accepted by
everyone such that at the slightest depression or suffering, the recourse should be to
disrespect for the sanctity of life and the thoughts and belief in hope and optimism is
relinquished. If a deviation from the principle of duty is quite certainly evil, then it is not
out of place to state that suicide shares in that status of evil. Given the way we abstract
reason as having a grip on the will especially when faced with options, so as to choose the
better of alternatives, and knowing full well that good is the object of the will, then it is
36
CHAPTER THREE
THE DOCTRINE OF SCHOPENHAUER
Over time till the present day, it has been a perennial philosophical reflection that
if one introspects deeply into oneself, one will discover not only one's own essence, but
also by extension the essence of the universe. Akin to this is the principle of self-
consciousness which was the standard for German Idealist philosophers such as Fichte,
Schelling and Hegel, Schopenhauer stands within the spirit of this tradition but he
world as various manifestations of this general principle. For Schopenhauer, however, this
is not the principle of self-consciousness and rationally-infused will, but is rather what he
desires or will to live (Wille zum Leben), which directed all mankind. For Schopenhauer,
human desire is futile, illogical, and by extension all actions in the world. Unlike the
understanding of the Will as developed in the immediate previous chapter, his Will is a
metaphysical existence which controls not only the actions of individual agents but
ultimately, all observable phenomena. From his ontology of the Will he develops his
foundation of our instinctual drives, and at the foundational being of everything. How
37
3.1 SCHOPENHAUERIAN RE-CONCEPTION OF THE WILL
Schopenhauer develops his re-conception of the Will taking leave from Kant’s
notion of the perceptible world as the bedrock of his thesis. Kant’s greatest merit is in his
distinction of the phenomena from the noumena, that is, the distinction between
He notes importantly that our body which is just one among the many objects in the world
is given to us in two different ways: we perceive our body as a physical object among
other physical objects and we are aware of our body through our immediate awareness, as
we consciously inhabit our body, intentionally move it, and feel directly our pleasures,
pains, and emotional states. This implies that we can objectively perceive our hand as an
external object, just as a friend might perceive it during a handshake, and we can also be
subjectively aware of our hand as something we inhabit, like when we wilfully move, or
we can feel its inner muscular workings. From this observation, Schopenhauer asserts that
our body is given in two entirely different ways, namely, as representation that is
objectively or externally and as Will, that is, subjectively or internally. To find the key to
reality, we must look within ourselves, in our consciousness through which we become
aware that our bodily action which is thought to result from some motivational force is not
62
Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, p.334
63
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation vol. 2, trans. by E. F. J Payne (New York:
Dover, 1969), p.195
38
something different from the act itself but the force and the action are one and the same
thing.64 Therefore our bodily actions are simply the objectification of the Will, but
translated into perception; this explains why Schopenhauer concludes the first chapter of
which is our way of apprehending the noumenal reality of all objects in the world. This
will is single, devoid of multiplicity since it does not belong to the sphere of the spatio –
temporal world, but to the noumenal and omnipresent in nature. 65 Following from this
therefore, Schopenhauer regards the world as a whole as having two sides: the world is
Will and the world is Representation. The world as Will is the world as it is in itself, and
more likely go well for them than go badly. This can be compared with the valence effect
happening rather than bad things. In relation to the world, optimists usually think of the
world as a place that is hospitable to the aims and aspirations of human beings. On the
contrary and the opposite, is pessimism, the tendency to see only the negative or worst of
all things and to expect only bad or unpleasant things. Pessimists think of the world as
hostile and indifferent which allows no room for happiness as it is only a temporary
64
Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 7 (London and New York: Continuum. 1963), p.272
65
Ibid.
39
phenomenon. Based on this he says that optimism is a really wicked way that makes
as Will and Representation, takes the stand that this is demonstrably the worst of all
possible worlds and denies that life is ever worthwhile. 67 His pessimism stems from his
elevation of the will above reason as the main spring of human thought and behaviour and
it does not belong solely to rational persons but to be found in everything as the working
For the fact that the Will is single and omnipresent in nature, it is manifested in the
calling the pervasive force that permeates all of nature as ‘force’ or ‘energy’ he calls it the
Will because we gather its nature from our own experience of striving, therefore the
metaphysical Will is characterised as the ‘Will to live’ which for him is the same as the
Will.69 Upon the notice of nature’s concern for its species we immediately see how the
insect for example deposits its eggs where the larva may find nourishment OR birds that
66
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation vol. 1, trans. by E. F. J Payne (New York:
Dover, 1969), p.326
67
Barbara Hanna, The Riddle of the World: A Reconsideration of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), p.119
68
Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy History and Problems, 5th ed., (London: McGraw Hill Inc. 1994),
p.350
69
Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. 7, p.273
40
build nest for their young which are not yet born; this whole series of animal instinct
expresses the omnipresence of the Will to live.70 Man is not also left out of this basically
within the milieu of modern inventions and technology, as all his strivings serve to sustain
him and bring an amount of additional comfort to motivators such as hunger, the need to
care for children, sexuality, shelter and personal security. Schopenhauer also considers the
desire of the will to entail suffering because, these human desires, which for him are
selfish, create constant conflict in the world and occur in a cyclical process, then if this is
the case there can be no satisfaction or happiness. His supremacy of the Will over reason 71
results in his qualification of the Will as a blind, irrational, directionless impulse, for this
reason there is no supremacy of the human individual over the brute since both are guided
nature as it supersedes reason; it also forms the background for his pessimism. The will
instead of being a sign of human freedom only illustrates how human beings are
imprisoned in this phenomenal world and are forced to experience the world’s suffering
and pain. This no doubt has practical consequences especially as it stands as an anti –
thesis to existentialism.
3.3 ESSENCE OF LIFE
Schopenhauer’s ultimate question informs the reason for this section, and we can
immediately understand why he would ask this question since he has been beclouded by
70
James Collins, A History of Modern European Philosophy (The Bruce Publishing Company, 1954),p.683
71
See Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy History and Problems, 5th ed., p.350. He contends that intellectual
efforts can be sustained only for a short time and decline in strength but the will continues to without
interruption to sustain and support life. During dreamless sleep, the intellect does not work, whereas all the
organic functions of the body (the manifestation of the Will) continue.
41
his pessimism – what value does existence have? He responds to this question of his by
saying that, the value in existence is not and cannot be greater than non-existence would
have. He says
As regards the life of the individual, every life history is a history of
suffering for as a rule, every life is a continual series of mishaps, great
and small... At the end of his life, no man, if he be sincere and at the
same tie in possession of his faculties will ever wish to go through it
again, rather than this he will prefer to choose complete non-existence.72
The primal drive in nature is to live and the will to live continually sustains the
cycle of life by means of a fierce struggle where the will to live instigates a constant
conflict and destruction, it knows no cessation and Schopenhauer puts it “we are like a
man running downhill who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will fall if he
stops”73 meaning by that, we cannot reach a state of tranquillity or satisfaction. Man seeks
happiness, satisfaction, and enjoyment but cannot attain it even if he does, it is only
temporary because no sooner will it re-assert itself again just like someone taking a drive
at a roundabout will continue to meet his starting point unless he stops. There is no final
large goal or long term project either in Nation building, industrial firm or individual
72
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation vol. 1, p.324
73
Idem, Studies in Pessimism: A Series of Essays, 4th ed., trans. by T. Bailey Saunders, M.A (London: Swan
Sonnenschein and Co., 1893) p.35
74
Idem, The World as Will and Representation vol. 1, pp. 308-309
42
engagement but the pessimist admits that the happiness in particular, does not last but
those moments last, sweet and are made sweeter by the difficulty of their attainment. 75
Even though life can be pleasant for long stretches of time we cannot escape from pain
plagued by diseases, loneliness, injury, heartbreak, fear which are part of life. If life
inevitably contains suffering, then why should we strive at all knowing full well that it has
no aim? On this Schopenhauer’s pessimism concludes that life is a bad bargain owing to
the disproportion between pain and pleasure such that life becomes the investment of all
our strength for something that has no value. Since life is the hallmark of suffering
Schopenhauer affirms “unrest is the mark of existence” 76 and conceives of death as the
he interprets death as the aim and purpose of life, since to live is to suffer, the triumph of
death is definitely inevitable and existence is a constant dying owing to the fact that every
moment of life brings us one step closer to the abyss. 77 Although he regards death as the
purpose of life, he posits that death is only phenomenal and not an absolute annihilation;
he is holding out the possibility for an afterlife but not an afterlife for the empirical self.
Life ... may certainly be regarded as a dream and death as an awakening.
But then the personality, the individual, belongs to the dreaming and not
to the waking consciousness; and so death presents itself to the former as
annihilation.78
75
Hanna, The Riddle of the World: A Reconsideration of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy p.123
76
Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism: A Series of Essays, p.35
77
Christopher Janaway, The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), p. 298
78
Ibid.
43
All life tends towards death and death is not an absolute extinction merely the end of
individual consciousness but not the underlying entity; in light of this Schopenhauer
postulates we need not fear death. Since to live is to suffer, it gets to a point when
prolonged life eventually makes and individual lose interest in life, he believes that the
acceptance of death is a form of release from this misery. Although his metaphysical
3.4 SUICIDE
If life has death as its aim and purpose, then why should not every enlightened
consciousness destroy itself in order to escape the suffering of the individual will and
says
As far as I know, none but the votaries of monotheistic, that is to say,
Jewish religion looks upon suicide as crime. This is all the more striking
in as much as neither in the Old nor New Testament is there to be found
any prohibition or positive disapproval of it ... they have no biblical
authority to boast of, as justifying their condemnation of suicide nay not
even philosophical arguments that will hold water; it must be understood
that it is arguments that we want...79
The ‘will to live’ is the informant of all suffering there are in the world, so while death is a
denial of the ‘will to live’, suicide for him is the contrary, being an unworthy affirmation
of the will to live. The individual who commits suicide does not cease willing but ceases
to live and in ceasing to live, the will affirms itself through the cessation of its own
44
existence seeks the termination of human misery in the phenomenal world, then suicide
does not qualify as the proper method because for him, the death of the individual does
not affect the Will in any way. How then does suicide affirm the will to live?
Suicide, the arbitrary doing away with the individual phenomenon
differs most widely from the denial of the will to live... Far from being
denial, suicide is a phenomenon of the Will’s strong affirmation, for
denial has its essential nature in the fact that the pleasures of life not its
sorrows are shunned. The suicide wills life and is dissatisfied merely
with the conditions on which it has come to him. Therefore he gives up
by no means the will to live, but merely life since he destroys the
individual phenomenon.80
whether we choose to bring death through suicide or not, the finality of life is an
inevitable reality on the one hand, and on the other, suffering which the individual seeks to
escape through death has the ability to confer salvation on the individual by quietening his
desires, pleasures and withdrawing him from the false attachment to the phenomenal Will.
At death, the phenomenal individual is destroyed but what remains unscathed is the single
noumenal will; suicide fails to get at the root cause of the evils and sufferings of life.
It is clear that the main principles that underlie Schopenhauer’s treatment of this
Platonic ideology as a key aspect of his ontology of the Will which makes him conceive of
suffering rather than the very Will itself. In other that his thesis be complete, he offers the
means by which individuals can actually seek freedom from the sufferings of the will,
80
Janaway, The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer, p.306
45
which is not to will death and wilfully destroy the self but to continue to live while
condense the passion of human desires. In the bid to relieve the frustrations of constant
desire, Schopenhauer is of the view that a more universalistic perspective will heal the
fleeting satisfaction that characterize daily life; he speculates a denial of the will to live as
a reliever while still in existence. Through Ethics and Aesthetics, that is, through
asceticism (the denial of our passion and desires) on the one hand, and through aesthetic
contemplation of artistic beauty on the other hand, Schopenhauer says, we will sedate the
will to live.
painting, poetry and literature to represent Platonic ideas which are aspects of the Will
itself that transcend the conditions of space and time and the domain of sufficient reason.
If these Platonic ideas transcend sufficient reason, then how possible can the cognitive
subject grasp these ideas through the spatio-temporal objects? To this, Schopenhauer says
that, the quality of the subject of experience must correspond to quality of the object of
experience, therefore, in the state of aesthetic perception, where the objects are universal,
the subjects must likewise become universal. In that process, the subject of perception
abandons the principle of sufficient reason and approaches the object through intuition,
then there is a sudden transformation of the subject from a phenomenal individual into a
46
pure subject of knowledge, that is, the object forgets about his individuality and becomes
the clear mirror of the object; a pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge.81
Schopenhauer believed that while all people were in thrall to the Will, the quality
personality of the artist because he is less subject to Will. The artist does not learn through
experience what is beautiful (for example) in nature so that he can imitate it but he has an
a-priori knowledge of a special kind that makes him creative of a beautiful work. The
artist is endowed with the capacity to remain in the state of pure perception and produces
what is essential to an object, that is, the Platonic ideas (in this case the idea of beauty).
Such a person was a Schopenhauerian genius, a person who can retain his contemplative
attitude long enough to be so fixed on their art that they neglect the worries of life. 82 The
artist contemplates these Platonic ideas, creates a work that portrays them in a way that it
is accessible and through this communicates the universalistic vision to ‘those who lack
the power to see through and rise above the ordinary world of spatio-temporal objects.’83
For every other individual to attain this state of pure perception they must
appreciate and contemplate the works of art; this means that the subject in contemplation
detaches himself from the individual will to concentrate on the ideal essence of the object.
The contemplation on the object of aesthetic temporarily allows the subject a respite from
the strife of desire, and allows the subject to enter a realm of purely mental enjoyment. 84
81
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, vol. 2., p.210
82
Helen Zimmern, Arthur Schopenhauer, His Life and His Philosophy (London: Longmans, Green and Co.,
1876), p.98
83
The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2009 ed., s.v “Arthur Schopenhauer” by Robert Wicks
84
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation vol. 1, p.233
47
Implicit in this opinion of Schopenhauer is the awesome perplexity of how an individual
whose essence is willing can cease to will and how a pure will-less contemplation is
achieved through aesthetic perception? He states that although we are part of the will, it is
aesthetic experience and permanently in ascetic denial of the will. On how we become a
The central point ramified in his teaching of the escape from the will through
aesthetic experience is that, since the will is the inner nature of things and from his
ontology of the will, it is the source of suffering in the world, through aesthetic
contemplation, the world as will is eradicated and replaced by the world as representation.
Total absorption in the world as representation prevents a person from suffering the world
as will. Art diverts the subject’s attention from the grave everyday world and lifts him or
her into a world that consists of mere play of images. As constituting art, he has in mind
the traditional five fine arts namely, Music, architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry
and his account of the visual and literary arts corresponds to the world as representation
which had their value in the extent to which they incorporated pure perceptions. But,
these forms of arts were inferior to music, which being purely abstract, was to
Schopenhauer the highest and best form of human artistry. Music is given a special status
48
representation and it artistically presents the will itself, not the way it appears to the
observing individual.
Schopenhauer's aesthetics as an attempt to break out from the suffering of this
world is premised on his belief that what distinguished aesthetic experiences from other
allows the subject a break from the strife of desire. This happens only fleetingly and does
not pose a total freedom from the source of suffering, not until this is achieved, the
individual continues to linger in the flames of pain in this phenomenal world, thus his
essentials of self sacrifice, renunciation and detachment from bodily desires, inculcating
spiritual discipline and self purification. The influence of Buddhism and Hinduism spurs
Schopenhauer to recognise that suffering can be reduced by minimizing one’s desires and
not until the extinction of the ego is accomplished, the highest ethical goal cannot be
attained. Therefore as one of the ways to overcome suffering and to achieve a prolonged
gratification, he advocates for asceticism, ‘an austere life style that abates earthly
passion such that once we detach ourselves from our desires we render them useless and
vain. Through continuous disengagement from them we attain the zenith of detachment
whence thereof we become ‘a pure will-less subject of knowledge that regards the world
49
in an unconcerned and uninvolved manner’.86 Since he subscribes to asceticism, he
declares that the highest degree of asceticism is the voluntary death through starvation for
the reason that asceticism completely renounces the ‘will to live’ to the point that
starvation becomes a choice in which the will cannot further express itself in the form of
physical yearning or appetite. Nevertheless, asceticism quells the power of our desires
and a feeling of freedom ensues upon the realization that all these desires are but only an
illusion.
To deny the ‘will to live’, is not to say that the Will is destroying itself, but only
saying that a more universal manifestation of the Will is overpowering a less universal
manifestation, that is, the physically-embodied aspect; but the Will as a whole is set
against itself wherein one manifestation of the Will fights against another manifestation,
like the divided bulldog ant87. From a related angle, the ascetic's struggle is a struggle
against the forces of violence and evil, which, owing to Schopenhauer's acceptance and
nature itself. When the ascetic transcends human nature, the ascetic resolves the problem
because for him Christianity brings about the awareness that life is not good but
essentially suffering exemplified in the cross as a great symbol of torture and execution.
For those who have tried to transform Christianity into a life affirming religion, they have
86
Robert Wicks, Schopenhauer, (United Kingdom: Blackwell Publication Ltd., 2008), p.130
87
See Robert Wicks, Schopenhauer, p.95
50
mis-understood the essence of Christianity as a life denying religion. 88 The one who like
the saints and the enlightened ones in all religious traditions adopt asceticism, “in order
that by constant privation and suffering he may more and more break down and kill the
Will that he recognizes and abhors as the source of his own suffering and of the world’s.”89
However the inconsistencies there in, the point Schopenhauer draws out is the
intuitive conviction that our will in its expression through our manifold desires, is itself
the source of all unhappiness and insatiability, so when the will is denied we become
nothing, a will-less subject. In ceasing to will the individual overcomes what he calls the
original sin of existence (suffering), and becomes nothing even without dying.
88
Hanna, The Riddle of the World: A Reconsideration of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy, p.138
89
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation vol. 1, p.382
51
CHAPTER FOUR
EVALUATION OF SCHOPENHAUER’S REJECTION OF SUICIDE
This chapter is exceptionally concerned with raising objections to the irregularities
from the understanding of Will as the faculty of choice. With this in mind, a proper
direction is enacted in order to tackle the problem from the root firstly, before
humans can have a kind of access to it through experiencing their own acts of will; ‘the
world is my will’. Does Schopenhauer solve the problem of articulating the thing-in-itself
as being identical to the will? It is clear that the acts of will are temporal events, while the
thing-in-itself belongs to the a temporal realm (beyond time). If the will is identical to all
individual wills, to Platonic essences and ultimately to appearances, then there must be
some way of clarifying the possibility of how an a-temporal unison becomes temporal;
there must be accounts for the way a single a-temporal thing-in-itself breaks into a
plurality of temporal acts of will, but Schopenhauer does not solve this problem.
His Pessimism consists of a descriptive claim that all of life is suffering and a
consequent evaluative claim that life ought not to be. This shoots from his qualification of
the will as a blind, irrational and evil impulse. But if we question this recommendation,
can it actually be the case; is the will really blind? If the will is really blind, then it is
directionless, purposeless, and fruitless. Although he asserts that the will is blind and
52
dumb, he nonetheless evaluates it morally, meaning by that, the will must have some
capacity for self direction and some goal in expressing itself in phenomena 90 which is
contrary to his earlier claims on the will. Taken from another perspective, it is also the
case that human motives do require some knowledge before they can issue an action, in
the sense that, the individual must realise and be aware of the goal or ends which he seeks
as satisfying the will’s demand. The interplay between reason and will is expressed in this
the sum of feelings of displeasure is likely to be greater than the sum of pleasure. The
whole point here is clearly made by Georg Simmel that Schopenhauer fails to recognise
that there is happiness along the route from striving to attainment before its terminus,
when he says
Expected happiness is truly experienced ... and the will’s progress
towards attainment is attended by a more pleasurable situation than a
more painful one.92
we actually lack, taking due consideration of the action through which we strive to
eradicate this lack, may also be pleasurable. Happiness is therefore to be conceived as real
90
Julian Young, Schopenhauer (London: Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2005), p.83
91
Ibid.
92
Georg Simmel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, trans. by Helmunt Loiskandi, Deena Weinstein and Michael
Weinstein, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), p.55
53
rather than illusory for even Schopenhauer must have been happy upon the completion of
his great work or upon the revelation of the thing-in-itself or again to have found out that
that only pleasures can give life any value – something adds value to life if and only if it
involves a felt pleasure, while something adds negativity or no value to life if and only if it
involves a felt pain. This is questionable in a number of ways thus we ask; are felt
pleasures and pains the determiners of contributors of value? Schopenhauer’s view is that
each suffering drains away some or even all of the values from life which nothing can
restore but Nietzsche’s attitude to the same description is diametrically opposed. Nietzsche
asserts that suffering is not an objection to life but a sign of strength and greatness of
character to affirm one’s suffering as an integral element in one’s life. 93 This suggests that
people’s lives can make sense to them partly because of their suffering not in spite of
them.94
Although he claims that existence is never worth more that non-existence, his
disapproval of suicide rests on the grounds that suicide is a phenomenon of the will’s
strong affirmation and it gives up by no means the will to life. Firstly, the principle of
a form of death and should bring about the goal of life but the contrary is the case for him
which already negates his first premise that the aim and purpose of life is death. He
93
Janaway, The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer, p.335
94
See Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil, trans. by R. J Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books,
1990), p.56
54
nevertheless tries to make a point; instead of suicide we can live but in some sense
become detached from willing – a denial of the will to live through asceticism and
aesthetic contemplation.
The ascetic starvation of the self to death occurs by no means other than an extra-
ordinary act of the will but for Schopenhauer, it is a total suppression of the will. He later
The individual empirical will or ‘will to live’ is a representation of the will as thing-in-
itself, then if this is true, nothing anyone chooses or chooses not to do can be attributed to
the individual in question. This invariably means the denial of the will needed in order to
starve to death cannot occur as a result of the wilful decision of the ascetic. The obvious
objection here surfaces because if the act (denial of the will through starvation) is not
deliberately chosen, if it were not the result of a conscious decision, then in what sense
can it be meaningfully attributed to the character of the ascetic? The primacy of freewill in
the choice of available options is not inclusive in Schopenhauer’s ontology of the will
95
Arthur Schopenhauer, ‘Freewill and Fatalism’ in On Human Nature: Essays (London: Allen and Unwin,
1951), p.48
55
properties necessary for survival, but in aesthetic contemplation, consciousness loses itself
in the object abandons its own purpose and discovers the essence of the object. 96 Art
therefore transcends passion and appetites, transforming its creator and audience into will-
less, timeless subject of knowledge. Implicit in this conception is the awesome perplexity
of how an individual whose essence is wiling could cease to will and how a pure will-less,
contemplate a cup for example, it becomes contradictory to maintain that our experience
has no time element and it is implausible to claim that we are unaware of the cup’s
particular details. While perceiving the cup’s essence, we cannot apprehend it in the bleak
logical to conclude that no one can become a pure disembodied subject or have a timeless
experience97. It appeals more to say that in aesthetic experience our individuality, pain and
sense of time is somewhat submerged in the background during the experience than
clinging to the faux ideology of timeless, will-less subjects.98 To recall Kant’s theory, we
directly perceive an object that has inter subjectively invariant qualities (for example
figure and motion) along with subjectively variable qualities (colour, taste sound) within a
spatio-temporal realm.99
Schopenhauer should have earlier seen the great ditch he dug for himself when he
subscribed to determinism that eventually chains his theories of denial through asceticism
96
Young, Schopenhauer, pp.108 - 113
97
Wicks, Schopenhauer, p.98
98
Ibid.
99
Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, 2nd ed., pp.331-334
56
and aesthetics in the dark of plausibility. His claim that character is determined is
tantamount to asserting that people cannot transform themselves firstly by appreciating the
work of arts and secondly by withdrawing from the will through asceticism, how then
is bad, it is more likely to get worse in degree. Accepting pessimism is an injury to hope
either for us as individuals or for the human race as a whole by activating a stop to all
forms of trials and strivings to actualize the better. Suicide is evenly perpetuated by a
pessimistic view as it conceals in its pinions any and all element of hope postulating the
the will to live but only a mere surrender of life OR should it be rejected on the basis of a
natural law? The obvious contention here is the metaphysical rejection of suicide posed
by Schopenhauer in contrast to the categorical imperative of Kant. The former view has
been jettisoned and it means that the latter option has to be subscribed to. Kant believed in
an objective right and wrong based on reason, we should do the right thing just because it
is right and not because it promotes our desires or self-interest. We know what is right,
not by relying on moral intuitions or facts about the world, but by reasoning about what
we can consistently will. A good will is good, not because of its attainment of some
proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself.
Kant’s theory of the goodwill and the categorical imperative gives a more sound
57
formulated in the first chapter, as an act devoid of coercion but resultant from
intentionality, thus in the midst of all possible sufferings and pains, suicide cannot be a
Of great importance and worthy to note, is the reason why individuals who were not
troubled by pain and misery would opt for suicide. Schopenhauer might be wrong on this
when he claims that only those who were susceptible to suffering sought suicide as a
means to an end, but even those who enjoy the comforts of life seek the same ‘plague’.
Another pointer is the immoral formation of the conscience and the will of those
individuals who engage in suicide and this is exactly what the moral theory of Kant sets
out to correct in totality. Boredom of life rather than suffering has been detected to be the
leading cause of inconvenience in the case of the individuals cited above. This is the point
aesthetic contemplation, we for that moment eradicate all forms of boredom and lighten
100
See the website link http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/360/15846_suicide.html
58
up the emotions to a state of ecstasy, but this is strictly to be done in the light of this essay
this phenomenal world by individuals as arousing the need for suicide, there is no logical
and moral grounds for anyone to wilfully terminate his life. The sanctity and respect of
life must be upheld as a duty of every individual to himself as espoused by the categorical
imperative of Kant.
101
See Wicks Schopenhauer, pp.105-111
59
CONCLUSION
We have now reached the point of making the concluding remarks. All along, the
concern has been to situate our arguments against suicide on logical grounds other than
sentiments of whatever kind. Schopenhauer had done a great deal to the project of
the sufferings of this world. He must be accredited for that singular act; despite his
pessimism he intends to bring about some ‘good’ by tendering arguments to flaw suicide
as a therapy. Although he tries to do this, we have seen his vicious circle which robes him
to a halt.
The categorial imperative of Kant calls for a recourse basically for the singular
Schopenhauer, on the contrary, moral reason allows realistic endeavour against suicide.
Every human person with life has a purpose and role in the structure of reality which
cannot be replaced by other mode of existence. Upon the treatment of life with scorn and
disrespect, the call to duty, devoid of sentiments, utilitarian purpose or inclination sounds
to form and transform the conscience of such an individual. Exceptional about the
categorial imperative is its sporadic power which not only announces the duty to oneself
but also from oneself to others. We therefore have a duty towards ourselves and to the
suicidal.
60
Although Schopenhauer’s metaphysics did not successfully conjure tenable
arguments, his ideologies have practical implications for the world, but firstly they have
level such that satiety is far from reach. He probably was right (in a sense) when he says
that our desires are the cause of the evils and pains. He should be accorded some dignity
upon foreseeing this evil of materialism. His theory of detachment finds relevance in the
milieu of materialism and secularism which prides itself in the acts of men to the
detriment of values; this explains why he aligns with the saint’s ascetic denial.
The global economic meltdown resulting from credit crunch from February 2007
to the present dispensation, is a problem triggered by liquidity crisis in the United States
banking system and caused by the overvaluation of assets. It has resulted in the collapse of
large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments and downturns in
stock markets around the world. In many areas, the housing market has also suffered,
need and satisfaction is usually regulated by the society. Suicide rates tend to rise in times
of economic recession and depression. Durkheim noted first that financial crises led to an
immediate rise in the suicide rates, documenting this with the examples from Vienna 1873,
and when the number of bankruptcies rose in a society the suicide rates also increased.102
In the final analysis, our temporal human desires which cannot be satisfied
because they are simply insatiable especially in the midst of the economic crisis, is an
affective factor to accentuate suicide predominantly in the western world. Within this
102
David Leister and Bijou Yang, The Economy and Suicide: Economic Perspective on Suicide (New York:
Nova Publishers, 1997), p.14
61
mishap, where does this essay stand especially in relation to its pragmatic value? That is
exactly the point; the boredom and pains of this life are not enough to terminate existence
instead it can be curbed. Optimism is a veritable theory to instil some measure of hope not
just at the mental level but at the practical level too by instigating one into the actions
institutions but focuses on the human person, the individual’s quandaries, choices and
verdicts. Existentialists assert the significance of personal existence and decisions even in
the midst of the world that appears meaningless and absurd, therefore, men must at all
times, create their own table of values for the determination of their course of action that
in its refined state as exposed by this essay) temporarily eases off the misery in this world,
state. Therefore it is plausible to say that the categorial imperative of Kant as issuing from
62
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