What is suicide? Classifying self-killings

AbstractAlthough the most common understanding of suicide is intentional self-killing, this conception either rules out someone who lacks mental capacity being classed as a suicide or, if acting intentionally is meant to include this sort of case, then what it means to act intentionally is so weak that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide. This has implications in health care, and has a further bearing on issues such as assisted suicide and health insurance. In this paper, I argue that intention is not a necessary condition of suicide at all. Rather, I develop a novel approach that deploys the structure of a homicide taxonomy to classify and characterise suicides to arrive at a conceptually robust understanding of suicide. According to my analysis of suicide, an agent is the proximate cause of his death. Suicide is ‘self-killing,’ rather than ‘intentional self-killing.’ Adopting this understanding of suicide performs several functions: (1) We acquire an external standard to assess diverging analyses on specific cases by appealing to homologous homicides. (2) Following such a taxonomy differentiates typ es of suicides. (3) This approach has application in addressing negative connotations about suicide. (4) As a robust view, adding intention is an unnecessary complication. (5) It is more consistent with psychological and sociological assessments of suicide than ‘intentional self-killing.’ (6) It has useful applications in informing public policy. This p...

Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 23, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research