Take my thoughts with a grain of salt I am no expert but the thoughts came into my mind recently.
I had this idea when I posted a thread in this forum. The thread was about a mother in Belgium who killed all of her five children. She slit their throats but could not do it to herself despite the fact she wanted to.
I read about similar incident. A mother killed all of her children and then jumped in front of a train (and survived). I ask myself how much the method played a role in the different outcomes. Probably it is extremely difficult considering the survival instinct to slit one's own throat.
So is this the only explanation why this mother was able to kill all of her children though could not do it to herself? One could only theorize or speculate. We don't have the necessary information in this specific case. But what if we speak in hypothetical scenarios.
I think it is pretty difficult to kill oneself. At least this is my personal experience with it. I have the feeling many suicides involve a long planning and a lot of ruminating about it. A murder in the opposite can happen more spontaneous. At least on average - I am only a layman take my words with a grain of salt. There are probably also a lot of suicides out of impulse.
Violence against oneself probably involves a very different thinking process than murder. One could argument against that that there a lot of murder-suicides. Maybe there are similarities and connections. I don't know.
Personally I could not really imagine to kill someone except myself. This is probably why I assumed these differences. So maybe I am biased because I have primarily more insights into my own suicidality.
I have the feeling there are a lot of different metaphyical questions between suicide and murder. For me there are clear differences. Probably also because of these terms. One could conisder suicide as a - metaphysically - neutral act. However when we say the person murdered himself there is the negative connotation. Because the defintion of murder is that it happens out of mean-spirited reasons. One cannot really say that suicide usually is caused by mean-spirited reasons. Maybe the comparison is dumb though. And one had to compare suicide with killing (not murder someone or something.) I give an example what I mean. When an animal is in huge pain and barely has any chance of survivial and its existence would last long but would only exist of pain many would argue yes it is right to kill the animal. The animal cannot really commit suicide. Many veterinarians or ethicists would probably argue it is right to redeem the animal of the pain. We would not call this murder. The veterinarian however kills the animal -without a doubt.
One could argue that murder would be more difficult because the motives are more mean-spirited. However I think this is probably not true. Most people don't decide their daily actions with rational thinking in complex terms. Sometimes it is a gut-feeling that leads us. Or stereotypes, resentments, anger, frustration etc. So I think murder is not really more difficult because it usually is pretty evil.
I think it is the relationship one has with oneself that makes suicide so more difficult than murder. Oneself has to endure the pain if it goes wrong. If we hurt another person we can fade that out more easily. We don't have to live with the consequences if the other person ends up as a vegetable. Humans are usually scared of pain. If you shoot someone else you won't feel physical pain. Maybe all of these statements are too obvious to state anyway.
What do you think? The reasons might be self-evident but I think the discussion could be interesting.
I had this idea when I posted a thread in this forum. The thread was about a mother in Belgium who killed all of her five children. She slit their throats but could not do it to herself despite the fact she wanted to.
I read about similar incident. A mother killed all of her children and then jumped in front of a train (and survived). I ask myself how much the method played a role in the different outcomes. Probably it is extremely difficult considering the survival instinct to slit one's own throat.
So is this the only explanation why this mother was able to kill all of her children though could not do it to herself? One could only theorize or speculate. We don't have the necessary information in this specific case. But what if we speak in hypothetical scenarios.
I think it is pretty difficult to kill oneself. At least this is my personal experience with it. I have the feeling many suicides involve a long planning and a lot of ruminating about it. A murder in the opposite can happen more spontaneous. At least on average - I am only a layman take my words with a grain of salt. There are probably also a lot of suicides out of impulse.
Violence against oneself probably involves a very different thinking process than murder. One could argument against that that there a lot of murder-suicides. Maybe there are similarities and connections. I don't know.
Personally I could not really imagine to kill someone except myself. This is probably why I assumed these differences. So maybe I am biased because I have primarily more insights into my own suicidality.
I have the feeling there are a lot of different metaphyical questions between suicide and murder. For me there are clear differences. Probably also because of these terms. One could conisder suicide as a - metaphysically - neutral act. However when we say the person murdered himself there is the negative connotation. Because the defintion of murder is that it happens out of mean-spirited reasons. One cannot really say that suicide usually is caused by mean-spirited reasons. Maybe the comparison is dumb though. And one had to compare suicide with killing (not murder someone or something.) I give an example what I mean. When an animal is in huge pain and barely has any chance of survivial and its existence would last long but would only exist of pain many would argue yes it is right to kill the animal. The animal cannot really commit suicide. Many veterinarians or ethicists would probably argue it is right to redeem the animal of the pain. We would not call this murder. The veterinarian however kills the animal -without a doubt.
One could argue that murder would be more difficult because the motives are more mean-spirited. However I think this is probably not true. Most people don't decide their daily actions with rational thinking in complex terms. Sometimes it is a gut-feeling that leads us. Or stereotypes, resentments, anger, frustration etc. So I think murder is not really more difficult because it usually is pretty evil.
I think it is the relationship one has with oneself that makes suicide so more difficult than murder. Oneself has to endure the pain if it goes wrong. If we hurt another person we can fade that out more easily. We don't have to live with the consequences if the other person ends up as a vegetable. Humans are usually scared of pain. If you shoot someone else you won't feel physical pain. Maybe all of these statements are too obvious to state anyway.
What do you think? The reasons might be self-evident but I think the discussion could be interesting.
