This blog post explores whether suicide can be morally justified and whether it can be included within the right to life and free will from various ethical perspectives.
South Korea’s high suicide rate is recognized as a serious social problem. In a situation where many people choose voluntary death to escape real-life difficulties, the question arises: can suicide be morally justified? The answer to this question is that suicide is an act that cannot be judged as morally justifiable, and it is an act that can be chosen by an individual’s freedom.
Every person possesses the right to life. This is a universal human value enshrined in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person,” and in the constitutions of nations worldwide. A right includes both the entitlement to enjoy it and the entitlement to relinquish it. If the right to relinquish it is excluded, it ceases to be a right and becomes an obligation. The right to life is no exception. If the freedom to choose one’s own manner of death is excluded from the right to life, then the right to life can no longer be called a ‘right’.
In this sense, the voluntary choice of death through suicide could perhaps be seen as the most free and active expression of the right to life. Death through suicide is chosen by an individual through their own free will. If the process of that choice is rational and has an existential purpose, it can be viewed as a noble death, that is, the completion of life. Compared to natural death, death from illness, or accidental death, this kind of death represents the maximum expression of personal freedom.
This argument will likely be uncomfortable for many people. First, utilitarians would argue that while suicide may seem justified for the individual, it is morally unjustifiable for society as a whole because it causes unhappiness to those around them or because of the social loss incurred by that person’s disappearance.
However, it is difficult to use the effects of an action, such as emotions or visible losses, as the standard for moral judgment, as utilitarians do. They always define morality within the social context of the effects an action produces, making that morality context-dependent and variable. For example, if a person who has committed socially unacceptable acts and provoked public outrage commits suicide, and many people rejoice, this suicide could be seen as morally right because it provides emotional satisfaction to people. But if, later, the historical judgment of that person’s actions changes positively, and their suicide causes sorrow among future generations, does that suicide then become an immoral act? As this example shows, judging morality based solely on an action’s impact cannot be a clear standard, as it is impossible to consider all future consequences at a single point in time. Therefore, the utilitarians’ counterargument is difficult to consider meaningful.
Moralists who propose clearer moral standards would also criticize this argument. Represented by Kant, moral deontologists judge a maxim of one’s will to be moral only when it can be universalized and when it treats humans as ends in themselves, not merely as means. In this context, deontologists would argue that suicide is immoral on both counts: the act of suicide cannot be universalized, and in the typical case, it uses oneself as a means to escape present suffering.
To examine this, consider the categorical imperative: “You must not commit suicide.” Now imagine a person’s maxim contradicting this imperative: “It is permissible to commit suicide for some purpose.” Further, imagine this maxim becoming universally adopted across the entire world. From a deontological standpoint, to reject this maxim, one must demonstrate that it leads to contradiction in this scenario. Duty theorists would argue that since no rational person could will this maxim to be universally applied, it contains a contradiction in its universality and thus cannot function as a moral law.
However, let us focus on the purpose of ‘something’ in this maxim. If this ‘something’ were merely the avoidance of suffering, the duty theorists’ argument might be valid. Such a purpose constitutes treating humans as means. But if ‘something’ refers to the aforementioned existential fulfillment of the individual, the situation changes.
Before addressing this, we must first consider what it means to treat a person as an end. This implies that the person must be prioritized above all other values. Yet it remains unclear what ‘person’ signifies here. To an outsider, this could be interpreted as prioritizing the life of another above all else. This is because the most aggressive way an individual can infringe upon another is by taking their life, thereby depriving them of all freedom. However, this does not apply identically to the maxim an individual holds for themselves. While an individual may value their own life, they might also value some will more highly than life itself—a will closer to the realization of their essential self. In such a case, prioritizing that will would be treating oneself as an end.
Therefore, if that ‘something’ is more precious to the individual than life itself, suicide is not an act of treating oneself as a means, and there is no reason to universally condemn such suicide. However, the moral law Kant addresses is not a hypothetical one dependent on such ‘something’. It is an absolute categorical imperative, independent of situational context. Consequently, introducing Kant’s moral philosophy into this situation is problematic. If morality is applied deontologically, suicide is an act whose moral justification is difficult to determine.
Even considering all this, the act of suicide still generally feels uncomfortable. This discomfort usually arises because it refuses to acknowledge that the right to life is not solely dependent on the individual. Underlying this feeling is the implicit notion that since the right to life is granted by some transcendent entity beyond the individual’s control, the act of abandoning it constitutes a rebellion against that transcendent being. Of course, this is a gross generalization. Yet it reveals a fundamental problem in this discourse: arguments against suicide are often implicitly influenced by the discomfort that conventional, fixed notions about suicide and life impose on personal emotions. Stepping outside these fixed notions allows us to recognize the free will of humans manifested in rational suicide.
So why should suicide be prevented? It is not a moral issue. Most suicides stem not from rational, existential judgment, but from emotional judgment. Of course, even if suicide is based on emotional judgment, such a choice is an individual’s freedom, and the choice itself cannot be condemned. But this does not mean it is wrong to guide someone away from suicide. From a deontological standpoint, propositions about suicide are hypothetical and thus cannot be morally judged, but this does not mean hypothetical propositions are meaningless. Hypothetical propositions can also suggest methodologies for living more wisely. Suicide driven by emotional judgment or lacking deep self-reflection cannot be considered the best way to die. Therefore, preventing such suicides is justifiable as it stems from well-intentioned advice against such inappropriate choices.
