Dr. Margaret Battin
University of Utah
battin@utah.edu
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
Teen suicide
Always bad
Approve
Sallekhana
13th Khanda
Jain Tradition
Preventing old age
Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha
Hippocratic Corpus
2000BCE
450BCE
Sophocles
Upanishads
Egyptian Didactic Tale
Confucius
Isa
Disapprove
Violent suicide
Euripides

Situational



Self sacrifice (several)
Old age (Ancient Greeks)
Impassioned action vs. Contemplative movement to
the next life (Jain)
vs.
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

The Oath
Actual Practice
About Maidens
“…I will not give a
lethal drug to
anyone if I am
asked, nor will I
advise such a
plan…”
-Hippocratic Oath
Stoics
Responsible
Approve (Socrates)
Livy
Seneca
Josephus
Plato
Martyrdom
≠
Suicide?
Chrysippus
Interpretation?
450BCE
150 CE
0
Ignatius
Aristotle
The New Testament
Without good reason
Disapprove
Justin Martyr

All over the place

Chrysippus’s 5 reasons
Commanded to do so by a higher authority
 To avoid being forced to do shameful things
 Serious illness
 Poverty
 Dementedness


Seneca: Wise man’s
decision
“ …I shall willingly die for God… I am the wheat
of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts…
Then I shall truly be a disciple of Christ…”
“ …May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I
pray they may be found eager to rush upon me…and not deal with
me as with some, whom, out of fear, they have not touched.
But if
-Ignatius of Antioch
they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel
them to do so.”
Approve
Preserving Virginity
Self-invited martyrdom
Martyrdom?
150
1300
Angela of Foligno
Henry de Bracton
Aquinas
Ambrose
Augustine
The Quran
Disapprove
al-Bukhari
Catholic
position
henceforth
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

Christians become increasingly
negative
Exceptions
Martyrdom: Suicide or something else?
Daidoji Yuzan
(Samurai, Busido)
Approve
Glory of God
(Christ)
Thomas More
Chikamatsu
Monzaemon
David Hume
Cato
1400
1750
John Donne
Martin Luther
Immanuel Kant
Cotton Mather
Disapprove

Wide swings back and forth
Many varied views that change over time
On the Influence of Passions
Hindu Widow
Approve
Madame de Stael
Hara Kiri
Nietzsche
1750
1900
John Stuart Mill
Disapprove
Reflections on Suicide



Suicide as a
function of
societal
organization
The ethical issues seemed to be
eclipsed by the notion that suicide
is caused
Suicide as a
function of
psychopathology

Many widely disagreeing opinions


Kamikaze
Jihad


Szmul Zygielbojm protesting the extermination
of Polish Jews
Buddhist monks and nuns protesting
Vietnamese War
It’s an ongoing issue or legal in all of these countries: