Is it selfish to prevent people from commiting suicide?

[JKain]

Yes, it is mostly selfish. Doesn't mean it's wrong to try to prevent someone from commiting suicide though.

To people generally calling suicide the cowardly,easy way out etc.:
Please,with all due respect,STFU.
This narrow-minded platitude of kindergarten-psychology doesn't even work against people using suicidal tendencies as a way to pursue their attention-whore-ism it is practically designed for.

And of course suicide itself is also selfish - that's part of the point.
Asking someone who is willing to end his existence not to do it because of others...
maybe loading that guilt to just live on for others onto them...just doesn't seem as it would really help...like....anyone.
In some cases draging someone along like a walking dead might damage people close to him/her even more than the initial suicide would have.

Not wanting to defend suicide - just add some perspective (and to let off a lil steam - also seflish...)

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Suicide and depression is a mental illness. It's not a choice for these people. It's a physiological, chemical imbalance in your brain.

I.e exactly the same thing as happiness. So what's the real tangible difference between depression and happiness?

Think carefully now before you answer, since not even the world's leading neurobiologist are capable of presenting a scientific distinction.

For fuck sake people, I know that psychiatrists try to pass themselves off as "serious scientists" but you could at least TRY to question their methods and claims once in awhile...

 

[infinity_turtles]

Convincing someone not to commit suicide isn't selfish, or at least not inherently. Your motivations could well be though, wanting to bang the suicidal girl first or something. Forcibly stopping someone is, as you're putting your desires above theirs. Something being selfish doesn't necessarily mean it's not the right thing to do though.

 

[Master_of_Oldskool]

That depends on their motives. If they have clinical depression, as I do, then it's for the best if someone talks them down. I've had a gun in my mouth more than once, and later I realized that I had no legitimate reason to commit suicide. I reached out, got help, and am now... well, still a wreck, but I understand now that things aren't as bad as they seem to me.

Now, if someone has a terminal illness, or if their lives have been uprooted by some catastrophic incident, suicide is perfectly justified in my opinion.[/attempt to write lyrics for Green Day's next single] Of course, there are still an infinite number of variables to consider, but these seem like good general guidelines.

Suicide and depression is a mental illness. It's not a choice for these people. It's a physiological, chemical imbalance in your brain.

I.e exactly the same thing as happiness. So what's the real tangible difference between depression and happiness?

Think carefully now before you answer, since not even the world's leading neurobiologist are capable of presenting a scientific distinction.

For fuck sake people, I know that psychiatrists try to pass themselves off as "serious scientists" but you could at least TRY to question their methods and claims once in awhile...

Happiness is a natural chemical process which is meant to happen in normal human beings. Depression is a chemical imbalance which is not meant to occur naturally.

And, if we were to put it in a more philosophical light (which I'm admittedly not qualified to do, knowing nothing of philosophy, psychology, or how other human beings actually function), happiness has a reason for occuring. It stems from external stimulus. Depression - not sadness, depression, the recognized disease which includes sadness as a symptom but which is not simply "being really really sad", as many people think - happens with no provocation whatsoever. There is absolutely no choice for someone suffering from depression. We can't help being depressed any more than you can help needing water to live.

 

[commodore96]

Suicide is one of the most selfish acts you can do, so preventing someone from doing it is cool.

 

[nekoaitsu]

It's unjustified to PREVENT them, but morally justifiable in most cases to DETER them.
Actually, good question. It may be, but there are so many different circumstances, I'm not sure how to answer. The question would have to be less ambiguous.

 

[Tanthius]

As a person who has been suicidal, and has had a family member commit suicide I think I'm in a fairly good place to talk about this. Stopping someone from doing it isn't even a question, get off your ass and stop them. It is your duty as a human being to preserve life, if you think you should just let them die cause it's their right you are a sick person. I still suffer from clinical depression but actually having my Uncle, who I was very close to, blow his own brains out woke me up to the reality of what I was going to put my family and friends through, cause I got to deal with it. So I got help, and I turned my life around. Now I'm a very productive individual who can deal with my depression in more productive and less selfish ways. Suicide is the most selfish thing a person can do, stopping a person from doing it is selfless and caring. Don't even debate about this, you need to help someone when they are in need. Saving lives is not something we are supposed to question, it's something we as human beings should be doing without thinking.

We are not talking about the terminally ill or any of that stuff, that's just clouding the original argument. We are talking about people like myself who sat around thinking about how bad life is and then decided to jump from bridges or jump in front of trains. I will never stop wondering what I could have done to save my uncle, and I would never, ever, ever, put someone I care about through that.

 

[Kirex]

That's pretty much the only objective truth that can be gained from this entire discussion. Suicide candidates and the people trying to stop them are simply equally selfish and no one is less/more selfish than the other.

Every single thing someone conciously decides to do is selfish, so that's kind of... not a reason not to stop them. Also, you could view suicidal tendencies as a reaction to "too much bullshit in this and that timespan" and that it might be in his interest to at least wait a while before killing himself because he lost his job and his girlfriend left him. You know, not actively trying to persuade him but just saying that he acts prematurely about this situation. It's like trying to tell someone that he shouldn't eat shit just because he thinks the idea is funny.

[sub]*Quick Note: Anyone who thinks its selfish to suicide / save someone from suicide reminds me of people who think workers are only numbers that can be reproduced at any given time, you know, the asshole corporate boss people. Not saying anyone is here, but you certainly remind me of them.[/sub]

I personally detest the people that think suicide is selfish. They are no doubt the same people that believe in the right to free speech as long as the viewpoints are similar.

Actually, no. I'm not. To both of you. I love to hear other viewpoints. Which is why I'm asking: What do those two things have in common? I'm not an emotionally crippled idiot, you know, I've had quite a share of conversations about suicide even with a guy who was thinking about it himself.

You know what he said? That he knows that it is selfish and he just doesn't give a fuck about others anymore. Of course, one guy says it, it's not universal, right?

But why shouldn't it be? You leave other people behind in sadness just because you yourself feel that it's too hard for you. You think that your problem is actually worth it to let others suffer. Severely. Some of these people, like your parents, if you still have some, essentially wasted a big deal of time to make you feel good, they tried to raise you and they didn't suceed in making you happy. I can't even begin to imagine how much that hurts. And that is not selfish? Just to give a flying fuck about other peoples emotions?
No, I'm not saying that suicidal people are the cause of their own problems, I'm not saying it's their fault for getting to that point.

Analogy: if you desperately need food and therefore steal from other people who barely have some, it's not your fault, but you are still thinking more about yourself than them. It's no bloody shame to say that they're acting selfish because they are not the actual cause of their behaviour.
"Selfish" is not always an insult, you understand that? It's a description of the action. I'm not saying that those people are "evil" or in any way "worse" than we are, but they are still selfish.

tl;dr: At least read the last paragraph.

 

[MysticToast]

Suicide is a selfish thing in itself and is usually not made when in the best state of mind. I would say it's not selfish at all to stop someone from killing themselves.

EDIT:

Suicide is cowardly, impractical, & wasteful. Want to end your life? Do it by doing something productive that will eventually kill you.

Actually this guy pretty much sums it up. I applaud you, sir

 

[jameskillalot]

depends on their reasons, if it's a decision of a depressed person or mental illness, but if it is their decision to end their life let them, if you're going to let people freely act irresponsibly in so many ways.

 

[WolfThomas]

Suicide is often a permanent solution for a temporary problem. Well yes while there are certainly people who will still keep trying to kill themselves and will probably succeed no matter what we do, there's also people who with adequate help will never think of doing it again and go on to leave their lives with some degree of happiness. It's for those people we try the hardest to intervene.

depends on their reasons, if it's a decision of a depressed person or mental illness, but if it is their decision to end their life let them, if you're going to let people freely act irresponsibly in so many ways.

But there's a catch-22 where if someone wants to die how much of a right mind are they actually in? Excluding people with terminal illnesses.

 

[Liam Barden]

The general sentiment I am hearing in this thread makes me sick to my stomach, which I guess is hardly surprising these days.

First off, Im going to set the record straight. I am not depressed. I have never been depressed. I am a well balanced individual, in that respect. I can keep my emotions in check.

The first thing we have to remember about life, is that nobody asks for it. We arent sitting around in the void of nonexistance longing to be 'realised'. Life is by definition forced upon a new, innocent entity without their consent.

For this reason, many consider life to be a gift. Forgetting, of course, that gifts dont come with a million dollars worth of strings attached. People are need-machines by nature, all we really do is continually desire. On a basic level we desire air, water, food and shelter. Then once those needs are filled we move higher up Mazlows hierarchy, always wanting more, needing more. Even if it were possible (which it isnt) for every single desire of ours to be met then we have only returned to neutral. We have only cleaned up the messes that were created by existing in the first place. Humans are, therefore, permanently in a deprived state of being. Its the basic economic problem; resources are limited, human desires are unlimited.
When you create a child, you are creating need that doesnt need to exist. You are moving a being from a state of neutraility in the void of nonexistance to a state of deprivation in this world. The very nature of sentient life is that it creates a mess, and then only cleans up half of that mess.

The worst part of it all is that humans are built with a real hunger for life. If it werent for our life addiction we would have died out by now, after all. Apathy does not a successful organism make.
Due to this addiction our rational assesments of life become emotionally charged, clouding them. It becomes very difficult for a 'normal' human to kill themself. It is not an easy thing to do, even for people that clearly have nothing to live for, perhaps living in chronic pain, due to our inbuilt life addiction.

Therefore I maintain, that forcing anybody to stay in this world is wholly selfish, almost as selfish as creating them in the first place.

This idea that you owe something to your family and friends, that their longing for you to be around takes precedence over your desire to end the deprivation forced upon you is wholly unreasonable.
We drag people from the void, kicking and screaming, then have the nerve to call them ungrateful and selfish if they want out.

No, it is the people stopping them who are selfish. We are sad when people die only because we miss them, not because they are somehow worse off. Indeed the dead are actually better off than the rest of us. They have no needs, nor any desire for need. They are perfectly neutral, perfectly at peace. The idea that we can force people out of this state and hold them hostage in this life, to reiterate, makes me sick.

The entire life 'experiment' has failed on a fundamental level, and we need to be talking about this.


TL;DR
OP is correct, and you all need to stop and think about this some more. People didnt ask for this life. They have no obligation to you to stay here.

 

[Liam Barden]

Also, to all the people parroting
'suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem'

What do you propose instead, a temporary solution?
Permanent solutions are the best kind of solution (indeed, you could argue the only kind)

 

[Psychedelic Spartan]

Um. How would it be selfish? You're doing something for someone else, not for yourself.

 

[Tanthius]

*snip*

TL;DR
OP is correct, and you all need to stop and think about this some more. People didnt ask for this life. They have no obligation to you to stay here.

As a person who doesn't have any experience with this topic, you're vitriolic opinion is unfounded and uneducated. People who are saved from suicide are almost always grateful for it. If you didn't stop them you might as well have helped them die. You're way of looking at life is totally blind to the moral responsibility we all have to look after each other. I think you sound like an incredibly selfish person by this line of thinking. Stopping them is in no way selfish. I don't need to think about my opinion some more, I've had a decade of dealing with this myself both internally and externally. You need to think about this some more, and if you still feel the same way, you need to talk to someone about it cause it's a frighteningly cold and callous attitude.

 

[lacktheknack]

No. Philanthropy, by definition, isn't selfish.

And if it is, then I'm perfectly fine with being the most selfish bastard in the universe.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

Yes it's selfish, and a complete waste of time.

Spend your time on people who genuinely WANT to live. Not the idiots who think life is worth ending because they feel a bit grumpy. They are unworthy of the life they have, and the sooner they kill themselves, the better.

And yes, I would in fact reason the exact same way even if it was a friend, family member or other form of loved one threatening to commit suicide. In fact, there have been times when that was exactly the case and my only response was a cold and to-the-point: "Well then go ahead and stop TALKING about it!"

I was all set to unleash a torrent of impotent internet-rage on your ass for saying something so... inhuman. But then I remembered that the last time I did that to someone I got a warning. I'm already full up on warnings earned for heaping well-deserved ridicule on some of the more vile characters on this site. So, I'm just going to report you and hope that the mods have the good sense to use that banhammer on someone who actually needs the discipline.

OT: No. No it isn't. Saving someone's life is kind of the definition of unselfish behavior.

 

[aristos_achaion]

Speaking as somebody who's had to be stopped from committing suicide a couple of times in the recent past, no, no it's not.

 

[lacktheknack]

Suicide and depression is a mental illness. It's not a choice for these people. It's a physiological, chemical imbalance in your brain.

I.e exactly the same thing as happiness. So what's the real tangible difference between depression and happiness?

Think carefully now before you answer, since not even the world's leading neurobiologist are capable of presenting a scientific distinction.

How about "one induces a better work ethic, more stability, better health and generally increased quality of life, as well as being seen as desirable, while the other is completely opposite?"

 

[Liam Barden]

As a person who doesn't have any experience with this topic,

When did I say I had no experience. I have dealt with many depressed close friends in my lifetime.

you're vitriolic opinion is unfounded and uneducated. People who are saved from suicide are almost always grateful for it.

The operating word there being almost. What about the fraction of people (and with global suicide rates continuing to rise, that fraction represents a LOT of people) who don't actually feel grateful, ever? The people who truly dont want to be here, and never will? How can you help those people?

The alternative is to let those who want to die, die. This has a 100% track record of not causing them future harm. As soon as you can show me a better alternative than that, im going to stick to my guns.