Discussion What is your opinions on suicide being a rational or irrational decision?

[DontplayGod]

Personally I believe that it takes a rational mind to make the decision, but it takes an irrational mind to actually go through with the suicide.

 

[Arrow]

I guess it kind of depends on your perspective whether it's rational or not. Like, if someone's life circumstances have led them feeling they should kill themselves and then they do it, one might say "who are we to decide it was not rational if their life experience led them to actually do it?" and with that perspective, you could say it's rational if you feel so inclined.

but there's the opposite perspective that would lead someone to say it isn't rational, that being: if you're alive and suffering you have infinitely more than a dead person, who has nothing. if you are alive there is a nonzero chance that you will not be suffering at some future point, so killing yourself and erasing that possibility isn't rational. the rational thing is to constantly attempt to feel better.

i'm not sure if either perspective is inherently wrong or right, it's just whichever way you "choose" to see it (since your perspective isn't exactly a choice, life conditions you into certain ways of thinking). IMO, though, i'd say suicide is irrational if thought about most logically, but i can empathize with it a lot, and see why people do it (which likely isnt surprising considering the fact i'm here right now lol).

 

[Sunset Limited]

Mental health is overlooked when many people buy guns. When governments start a war, use society like a slave, no one has the right to question their rationality. But when someone wants to end their own life, suddenly everyone wants to be rational. While it's rational to live in an absurdly brutal and disgusting society, you have to discuss rejecting it. Having to be judged from the perspectives of others while ending one's own life is merely the legitimation of a form of enforced obstruction. Only I can make this decision for myself.

 

[rationaldeath]

How do you define a rational or irrational decision? It depends on what the goal is. I believe that in practice the ultimate subconscious goal of every person is maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering, and of those the latter holds precedence. Suicide eliminates all future suffering, so I view it as the most rational decision a person can make in most circumstances.

When it comes to actually carrying out the action one does need to be in an "altered mindset" to overcome our natural survival instinct, but I wouldn't necessarily call it irrational since it would align with the rational decision we made prior.

 

[Sunset Limited]

Another question. Why does it have to be rational? Is man rational all his life? How rational are we when making personal decisions? We make most of our decisions based on our feelings. When choosing our partner, our favorite music, our favorite fruit, our favorite color. We cannot decide on them. All that we love or not creates us but we can't decide on them. What isn't rational is that I'm alive right now. If I think rationally, the pain will last 1 second when I put my head on the railway but still I can't. Actually, even though I want to die, it's not rational for me to be here. We live our whole lives in the manipulation of our emotions that we cannot control. We can be rational in our work. We have to be rational when doing science, but few people are rational when making personal decisions. So why does suicide have to be rational? Being rational goes against human nature in most cases. Only I should decide how rational suicide should be.

 

[Sherri]

Most cases I believe it is a ration decision In my opinion, but respect other points of view.

 

[FuneralCry]

I believe that wanting suicide can be perfectly rational in a world like this. We live in a world with unlimited potential for suffering after all. In my case, I have came to the conclusion that my life is not worth living, I see life as being so pointless and unnecessary and I simply do not want to experience decades of suffering. For me personally, wanting to die makes sense.

 

[ConstantPain]

I agree, it's rational.
The world is overpopulated

 

[Marine]

Always been rational for me.
That was somehow very upsetting to the hospital's medical staff. Thoroughly brainwashed I suppose. I got told "it's not ok to be this matter of fact detached about your own death". Yes it is... What I'm not detached about is the cause and their answer was "your cause is not valid, learn to not be a human" but it's not like they know logic or are capable of facing the real world unfortunately...

 

[Zzzzz]

Depends on what someone's goal is.

 

[Atlantian]

Its a rational decision that seems irrational from the instinctive perspective of a human. I personally think humans are just parasitic creatures that only exist to consume and grow. Kinda like bacteria. Of course they will come up with a thousand reasons to explain why life is worth living. Seeing through that illusion is a sign of intelligence, not delusional thinking. And accepting that is one of the hardest things you can possibly do

 

[Celerity]

Regardless of whether it is or not, it's a matter of personal autonomy. People do fucked up things to their bodies that people recognize as their right to do so.

I think it's akin to asking *why* people commit suicide. As with any decision, there are a ton of motives - some of them better than others. Would we ever act as if there is a singular reason people commit murder? Or course we wouldn't.

 

[Tortured_empath]

Don't think it's as rational a decision as this board makes it out to be.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Maybe if the world were itself a more rational place then more people wouldn't even feel the need to rationalize suicide in the first place.

 

[DontplayGod]

Depends on what someone's goal is.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, the motive for suicide really determines how logical it is

 

[Al Cappella]

It's 90% irrational, 10% irrational. 90% of suicides are the result of serious mental illness, of which a great number can be helped. While it's not true in every case, the majority of them are irrational because of "faulty" information. The other 10% are completely rational, as they involve age-related stuff, advanced disease, etc…

 

[Passersby]

Rational suicide is 100 percent real, does exist and happens all the time. Suicide can be irrational or rational. Sure there would be a lot of cases that would fall in the category of irrational but that doesn't mean we just discount rationality. It depends on the person and the situation. Mainstream media will try to tell you that suicide is always irrational, a bad decision, and never even an option. When I decide it's time for me to CTB it will be rational because I have spent years thinking about this, preparing and most importantly rationalizing it.

 

[DontplayGod]

It's 90% irrational, 10% irrational. 90% of suicides are the result of serious mental illness, of which a great number can be helped. While it's not true in every case, the majority of them are irrational because of "faulty" information. The other 10% are completely rational, as they involve age-related stuff, advanced disease, etc…

I would like to challenge your beliefs here, would suicide due to mental illness that can be helped always be irrational. Life has been forced upon everyone so if you're dealt a bad hand and don't want to go through the effort and painful journey to get an okay or somewhat good hand it seems pretty reasonable to just kinda give up. Giving up is actually pretty villianized, if someone doesn't want to do something then why make them? I would only claim a suicide is irrational if it is due to a mental illness that someone could get help for and that wants to live life as your typical non-suicidal person.

 

[Deleted member 847]

Rationality is a tool that you use to achieve a goal. Goals aren't rational in and of themselves. They're just desires. Survival is a desire too.
If your goal is to kill yourself because you value not being alive over being alive, then you're being rational
If your goal was to use suicide as a "way to escape pain", then you might be irrational, because you might have other options you're not seeing.
To the communist the capitalist is stupid and viceversa
To the muslim the christian is stupid and viceversa

Nothing is rational on its own. Not even self preservation, or avoiding pain.
You don't agree? Okay then what if 7 billion human beings have to die and be burned alive
if I don't take their place? Is it still irrational for me to choose to kill myself and feel pain?
If I don't every human being on this planet will be burned alive and die.
If my value system says that I shouldn't be a selfish cunt, then I'm going to make a decision that
would make a psychologist think that I was being "irrational"