The high suicide rate in South Korea has been pointed out as a social problem, and it is necessary to discuss whether suicide can be morally justified according to an individual’s free will and right to life. This article examines the morality of suicide from the perspectives of utilitarianism and moral obligation, and argues that suicide can be recognized as an individual freedom if it is a choice based on rational judgment.
The high suicide rate in Korea is a serious social problem. With many people choosing voluntary death to escape the difficulties of life, the question arises whether suicide can be morally justified. The answer to this question is that suicide is an act that cannot be morally justified, and it is an act that can be chosen by an individual’s freedom.
Everyone has the right to life. This is a universal value of humanity, enshrined in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person,” and in the constitutions of countries. A right includes not only the right to enjoy it, but also the right to renounce it. If the right to renounce is excluded, it is no longer a right, but a duty. The same is true for the right to life. If the right to life excludes the freedom to choose how one dies, it would no longer be a right.
The voluntary choice to die by suicide is perhaps the most free and active expression of the right to life in this respect. Death by suicide is chosen by the individual through his or her own free will, and if the process of choice is rational and has an existential purpose, it can be seen as a sublime death, the completion of life. Compared to natural, military, and accidental deaths, this is the greatest expression of personal freedom.
These arguments will make many people uncomfortable. First, utilitarians will argue that while suicide may seem justifiable to the individual, it is not morally justifiable to society as a whole, either because it makes others unhappy or because of the social losses that result from the person’s disappearance.
However, it is difficult for utilitarians to use the effects of an action, such as emotions or tangible losses, as the basis for their moral judgments; they always define morality in terms of the social context of an action’s effects, and morality is context-dependent and variable. For example, if a person commits suicide because of socially unacceptable behavior and many people are happy about it, the suicide may be considered morally right because it gives people emotional fulfillment. However, if the historical judgment of the person’s behavior later changes to a positive one, and the suicide causes grief to future generations, does the suicide become immoral again? As this example shows, judging the morality of an action by its effects is not a clear-cut standard because it is impossible to consider all future effects at a single point in time. Therefore, the utilitarian objection is not meaningful.
Moral obligationists, who offer a more definitive moral standard, would also criticize this argument. Moral deontologists, represented by Kant, judge an act of will to be moral if it can be universalized, and if it treats human beings as ends rather than means. In this case, deontologists would argue that suicide is immoral on both counts. The act of suicide cannot be universal, and in the typical case, a person uses himself as a means to escape his current suffering.
To see this, consider the axiomatic proposition “You shouldn’t kill yourself,” and the counterfactual proposition “It’s okay to kill yourself for something,” which is universalized across the world. In order to deny this rule on the deontological grounds, we need to show that a contradiction arises in this situation. Since no rational person would be motivated by the universal application of this rule, the deontologist would argue that the rule is contradictory in its universality, and therefore cannot function as a moral law.
But notice the purpose of the “something” in the law. If this “something” is simply the avoidance of suffering, then the deontologist’s argument might be valid, since such an end is an act that treats humans as means to an end. However, if the “something” is the existential fulfillment of the individual mentioned above, the situation is different.
Before we get into this, it’s worth considering what it means to treat people as ends. It means that people should be prioritized in all values. It’s unclear what we mean by “people” here. This could be interpreted as prioritizing the lives of others. This is because the most aggressive way an individual can infringe on another is to take their life and deprive them of all freedom. However, the same does not hold true for the ratio an individual has to himself. An individual may value their own life, of course, but they may also value some will that is closer to their essential self-actualization than their life. In such a case, prioritizing that will would be an act of treating oneself as an end.
Therefore, if that “something” is more valuable to the individual than life, then suicide is not an act of treating oneself as a means, and there is no reason to universally deny it. However, the moral law Kant is dealing with is not a contingent proposition that depends on this “something”; it is an absolute categorical imperative that is independent of context. Therefore, it is unreasonable to apply Kant’s moral philosophy to this situation. If we take a deontological approach to morality, then suicide is an act whose morality is difficult to determine.
Even taking all of this into account, the act of suicide is still generally uncomfortable. This discomfort usually stems from a refusal to recognize that the right to life is dependent on the individual. Underlying these feelings is the idea that the right to life is granted by something transcendent, beyond the control of the individual, and that the act of giving it up is a rebellion against that transcendent being. This is a gross generalization, of course. But it does recognize an inherent problem with this discourse. The argument against suicide is driven by the discomfort that conventional stereotypes about suicide and life have on an individual’s emotions. If we look beyond these stereotypes, we can see human free will expressed in rational suicide.
Nevertheless, why should we stop suicide? It’s not a moral question. It’s not a moral issue because most suicides are emotional, not rational, existential decisions. Of course, even if suicide is an emotional decision, we can’t condemn the choice itself, because it’s a personal freedom. However, this is not to say that it is not right to try to guide someone away from suicide. From a deontological perspective, propositions about suicide are contingent and therefore cannot be morally judged, but that doesn’t mean that contingent propositions are meaningless. Contingent propositions can provide us with a methodology for living our lives more wisely. Suicide based on emotional judgment or without deep introspection is not the best way to die, so preventing such suicides is justified as well-intentioned advice against such poor choices.
