[Article] Found a good Reddit thread arguing against forced-lifers preventing CTB without offering relief!

[TAW122]

In the past I have written many threads (examples #1, #2, #3, #4, etc.) lamenting about how forced-lifers (pro-lifers) often get in our way, intervene against our will, violate our boundaries, wishes, and more, and I just found a Reddit thread, by the user, nico-ghost-king, stating their view on how suicide prevention is NOT a moral obligation, and is also morally wrong unless the intervener is willing to provide relief to the attemptor (person attempting suicide) and such, which has an interesting argument.

Here is the post in the quoted box below:

This post is not made in relation to me, or anyone around me, and is made purely to discuss the ethics of suicide intervention.


Major Assumptions:

1. Suicide is an action done by an individual (hereafter referred to as the Agent) to save themselves from future harm or suffering
2. For an actor (hereafter referred to as the Samaritan) to intervene in the life of any individual, they should be able to probabilistically provide them non-negative utility.

Lemma 1: Intervention in a suicide creates a responsibility on the Samaritan to provide relief to the Agent.

1. Suicide is an Agent's solution to their suffering.
2. Intervention in a suicide blocks the Agent's proposed solution.
3. Therefore, it is upon the Samaritan to probabilistically provide the Agent a positive utility in their life, aka. the Samaritan must give the Agent a better-than-suicide solution to their suffering

Claim 1: Intervention in suicide is not a moral obligation.

1. Intervention in a suicide creates a responsibility on the Samaritan to provide relief to the Agent.
2. Any moral framework under which intervention in suicide is mandatory forces an autonomous actor into a responsibility which they did not consent to. Intervention should require the willingness of the Samaritan.
3. Moral obligations cannot compromise the autonomy of an individual, especially at a significant cost to them.

Claim 2: Intervention in suicide is morally wrong unless the intervener is willing to take the responsibility of providing relief to the suicidee or assert beyond reasonable doubt that an institution, a family, or a friend, is both willing to and capable of providing relief.

1. Intervention in suicide forces the Agent back into the circumstances under which they wished to commit suicide, which may further be worsened by the social stigma that suicide carries, along with possibly surveillance and shame.
2. This puts the Agent into a negative utility position, and the Samaritan is the direct cause of it.
3. If they are unwilling to provide relief or are unsure if anyone else can provide relief, they will have inflicted foreseeable and preventable harm on the Agent.

Edit 1: I would like to clarify the meaning of "intervene". Here, "intervene" means "stop using prolonged force". If the Samaritan is able to convince the Agent from committing suicide without making any promises which cannot be realized, then that intervention is permissible. Intervention by the use of force overrides the Agent's autonomy and puts them back into a net-negative situation, possibly without scope of relief.

I am not going to repeat everything that is said, but to summarize things up, essentially nico-ghost-king essentially asserts that there is NO moral obligation to intervene against another person's desires or wishes, and also that such intervention is morally wrong. I'm going to focus mostly on the 2nd claim as that is more in line with our pro-choice philosophy. I agree with claim #2 especially because that is what the majority of suicide prevention interventions are about, preventing suicide at all costs, as much as possible, regardless of the reasoning (maybe barring assisted suicide, voluntary euthanasia, medical aid in dying). However, the latter is present because we live in a society that prohibits access to humane and reliable methods for ending one's own suffering, and then also aggressive, ever-growing paternalistic measures and policies aimed at curbing the act of suicide at all costs!

Another thing I'm going to address is the comments in the thread, especially the forced-lifers, and suicide preventionists like to push, oftenly are circular logic, they are claiming that because most people who attempt suicide (and fail) do not go ahead and attempt again, which in previous threads and other users here already counter that claim that people don't attempt again or admit to suicidality (if they are truly still suicidal) because they want these busybodies to go away, and they don't want to further lose more rights or have their liberties and personal freedom, privacy continually violated in the name of safety, benevolent paternalism. Other comments I will address are prolonged, unwavering and consistent wishes to die, are not rational, and that is indeed circular logic so it is a bad argument, and another comment with regards to 'mental illness' and soundness of mind; in other words, such a buzz word (or phrase in this case), 'mental illness' is thrown around too loosely, and used as some pretext to ignore any reasoning whether valid or not and a quick rebuttal to this is that soundness of mind is easily provable because if a person knows what they are getting into and understand the consequences of their actions, then it shows they are cognizant of their decision, and more.

While there are many more comments that can be addressed, I've hit some of the main ones in this thread as well as mainly posting this thread to show that nico-ghost-king's argument especially the 2nd claim is spot on, especially about how forced-lifers do owe it to the people they willingly intervene, interfere with, against the agent's (attemptor's) will, and by refusing or not being able to provide relief while leaving the agent harmed is immoral, and in that case I would argue that the agent should supersede the moral boundaries and (the unwritten contract), but I digress..