Suicide Victims are Cowards?

[EquALLity]

We're in the mental health unit in health class, and today some people were calling out that people who commit suicide are cowards.

At the time, I was just repulsed by that they were blaming people for their mental illnesses, as if it's somehow the fault of suicide victims that they were driven to suicide etc., and didn't chime in.

And now, I'm trying to come up with an argument against it, because it's a really shitty thing to say, and I don't want people to think that that's true or ethical to say or anything. People are probably going to bring it up again, but if they don't, it's not like I can't. They really just called it out randomly, so I don't see why I can't respond randomly. I just want to make sure I'm accurate on the facts first.

My argument is that obviously people who committed suicide were depressed, and that depression comes with a chemical imbalance in the brain. As a result, you aren't really in control of your own thoughts and feelings, and by extension, you aren't in complete control of your actions. Therefore, you can't put the blame on people who commit suicide like that, as they aren't in control of the feelings that provoked them to take their own lives, and so they weren't in control of the act.

Then I'm going to go into how even if that were true, that you shouldn't really say it. Like:

On top of that, even if that were true, that doesn't mean you should say it. Not that I'm arguing against freedom of speech; I'm saying that it's wrong to say certain things, not that you should be prevented from stating them. As my health teacher says often, you don't know who's listening. That's not going to help a depressed person who's listening; it's likely just going to make him/her feel worse.

I think my second argument about ethics is fine; I'm just not positive about the first one. I'm pretty sure depression is from the chemical imbalance, but I'm speculating that it affects your emotions and thoughts. I mean... of course it does, right? o_O I mean, it causes the depression. I'm pretty sure this is accurate, just want to make sure.

Oh, wait, apparently the chemical balance causation thing is controversial. >.<
Gah... Well, obviously, even if it's not the cause, it's still there, and it affects moods, right? But even if it doesn't, it's not the fault of depressed people that they have depression, and depressed people can't just snap out of it. The depression prevents them from controlling their feelings, which prevents them from controlling their actions... There we go. I think... >.<

Thanks for any replies for clarity with this!

[miniboes]

Before you start trying to disprove his statement, I would simply ask him to support it. Force him to come up with some actual arguments. Before you know why he thinks suicide is cowardly, any effort of refuting the claim is inefficient. The arguments you make in your post might not even correspond to his premises.

This is the reason Matt Dillahunty on the Atheist Experience always opens with "what do you believe and why?"; so he does not have to just guess what the reasons for the caller's beliefs are. Imagine if every time someone said they were a Christian he would start to refute the watchmaker argument, how effective would that be?

[brimstoneSalad]

What is bravery? What is cowardice?

Is bravery pushing on against an obstacle in spite of fear or pain? Is cowardice giving up because of fear and pain?
If so, a choice to commit suicide could easily be viewed as cowardly if it's being done as a retreat or a way out, but also potentially as brave if it's being done as a moral act; e.g. a pedophile killing himself despite fear because he knows he will not be able to stop himself from hurting more children. You often see the same kind of brave suicide in zombie movies, where somebody bitten will blow his or her own brains out to keep from turning and harming others (although that's not a very realistic example, it may be useful in discussion). It depends on the context and the reasons -- suicide is neither always cowardly nor always brave, but it is almost always one or the other.

But let's also examine the consequences of that claim, since despite its truth, it may be good or bad to actually say it:

Will people be more or less likely to commit suicide if the act is viewed as cowardly and socially unacceptable? Will the idea of being ridiculed after death put some people off?
And how would it make a depressed person feel worse? He or she hasn't yet committed suicide, so the label "coward" does not yet apply.
It could perhaps make the families of those who kill themselves feel worse (shame, etc.), but not likely the potentially suicidal person.

I would love to see studies on the subject, but I would expect it to act as a deterrent.

People with depression do have some margin of "free will", in the sense that their choices aren't completely controlled by the depression. They also have the option to seek help.

[knot]

In my opinion suicide is cowardly. It doesn't matter if people aren't truly in control of their thoughts or emotions, because that's basically the case for everyone. Studies also show that people tend to become more depressed and lose self-control when you tell them they have no free will

[Red]

We're in the mental health unit in health class, and today some people were calling out that people who commit suicide are cowards.

From personal experience, the people who say that are just people that think that they're superior to the people that commit suicide, when in reality they're just sanctimonious douchebags. Or they're just insecure.

At the time, I was just repulsed by that they were blaming people for their mental illnesses, as if it's somehow the fault of suicide victims that they were driven to suicide etc., and didn't chime in.

It's better not to chime in if you can't think of anything on the spot. But next time when they say that, or rather when you or someone else brings it up, you can come at them with a piece of your mind.

And now, I'm trying to come up with an argument against it, because it's a really shitty thing to say, and I don't want people to think that that's true or ethical to say or anything. People are probably going to bring it up again, but if they don't, it's not like I can't. They really just called it out randomly, so I don't see why I can't respond randomly. I just want to make sure I'm accurate on the facts first.

Like what miniboes and brimstone said, tell them to provide evidence for such claims. They're probably just saying it because they heard someone say it, or they're being sanctimonious on baseless assertions, or they're just blowing everything out of their asses.

My argument is that obviously people who committed suicide were depressed, and that depression comes with a chemical imbalance in the brain. As a result, you aren't really in control of your own thoughts and feelings, and by extension, you aren't in complete control of your actions. Therefore, you can't put the blame on people who commit suicide like that, as they aren't in control of the feelings that provoked them to take their own lives, and so they weren't in control of the act.

I think I disagree with you on that a bit. Sure, you're depressed, and you can't enjoy things that would make you happy and seeing everything being based on narcissism (being cynical), but in the end, you're the one who pulls the trigger. I guess you're trying to say that depression leads to suicide, which is pretty much common knowledge at this point. And you can't really control depression (unless you're just looking for attention), so I think it's being a total asshole when you say that suicide victims are cowards, when you really can't control your emotions, which leads to suicide. I view suicide as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you ask me, suicide is pretty selfish, as you are pretty much forgetting about everyone that cared about you. Unless, of course, you didn't have anyone that cared about you, then I guess that's different. Or if you know you're going to lose a war, and your ultimate demise in inevitable.

Speaking of cowardliness and suicide, I once read a book called "Tears of a Tiger". In the end, our protagonist commits suicide (sorry for the spoiler but it's your fault), and the teacher gave his friends the task of writing a final goodbye letter. One of the guys, named Gerald, claimed that suicide is the cowards way out. Real men face their problems , and just to keep living even when times are tough. Now it could've been out of the moment, but this could easily been the thought process of the people who think that suicidals (not a real word but it is now) are cowards. Now this is just me, but I don't think that suicide is cowardly. Why? Because it takes some serious fucking valor to end your life. More valor than to face problems in real life, no matter how significant they are. And I pretty much responded to the rest of your post. That may not be true, but I don't really feel like possibly repeating myself.

Hopes this helps!

[EquALLity]

Before you start trying to disprove his statement, I would simply ask him to support it. Force him to come up with some actual arguments. Before you know why he thinks suicide is cowardly, any effort of refuting the claim is inefficient. The arguments you make in your post might not even correspond to his premises.

This is the reason Matt Dillahunty on the Atheist Experience always opens with "what do you believe and why?"; so he does not have to just guess what the reasons for the caller's beliefs are. Imagine if every time someone said they were a Christian he would start to refute the watchmaker argument, how effective would that be?

Yeah, I was thinking of prefacing it with that if what I was saying wasn't really relevant to their argument/s that they could explain them, or something. I can see why it'd make more sense to ask from the get-go, though, so maybe I should do that instead.

[EquALLity]

Is bravery pushing on against an obstacle in spite of fear or pain? Is cowardice giving up because of fear and pain?

By that standard, anyone who 'gives up' by confessing when tortured is a coward.
Or even people with cancer who choose euthanasia.

I think it makes more sense to define cowardice (in general) as giving up due to some kind of unreasonable fear (update- unreasonable as in the fear is disproportionate to the situation, like not doing something you should because of a small risk etc.), for most people (not for people with anxiety etc. because their disorders prevent them from having nearly as much control over their fears as the average person).

If so, a choice to commit suicide could easily be viewed as cowardly if it's being done as a retreat or a way out, but also potentially as brave if it's being done as a moral act; e.g. a pedophile killing himself despite fear because he knows he will not be able to stop himself from hurting more children. You often see the same kind of brave suicide in zombie movies, where somebody bitten will blow his or her own brains out to keep from turning and harming others (although that's not a very realistic example, it may be useful in discussion). It depends on the context and the reasons -- suicide is neither always cowardly nor always brave, but it is almost always one or the other.

We were talking about depressed people taking their own lives, because of depression, and presumably in general. I don't think anyone was making a deontological statement about all suicide victims.

But I think that'd be interesting to mention.

And how would it make a depressed person feel worse? He or she hasn't yet committed suicide, so the label "coward" does not yet apply.
It could perhaps make the families of those who kill themselves feel worse (shame, etc.), but not likely the potentially suicidal person.

Well yeah, suicidally-depressed people haven't actually gone through with suicide, but they very seriously consider it. So it still could reasonably be perceived by them as further attacks, which they really don't need any more of.

I would love to see studies on the subject, but I would expect it to act as a deterrent.

It would probably be for some people, but I think that it'd dig most suicidally-depressed people into a deeper hole, because it could be reasonably seen as further attack. Hard for me not to see it as kicking people who are already down, and then expecting them to get up.

People with depression do have some margin of "free will", in the sense that their choices aren't completely controlled by the depression. They also have the option to seek help.

In my opinion suicide is cowardly. It doesn't matter if people aren't truly in control of their thoughts or emotions, because that's basically the case for everyone. Studies also show that people tend to become more depressed and lose self-control when you tell them they have no free will

But they're largely influenced by it. Their emotions are especially influenced (they're depressed, after all), and the build up of negative emotions is what causes these suicides.

I think it's also interesting to note that many suicides are done impulsively: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11924695

Finally, according to my health teacher, a lot of depressed people don't want to seek help, even though they know that they really should.
I can see that. There's a stigma about seeing counselors etc..

One more thing: I've been thinking about what the people in class were saying, and I don't think that they actually said that suicide victims are cowards, but that the action of suicide is (presumably generally and in this context) cowardly. Not necessarily that that one moment of alleged cowardice makes suicide victims cowards overall.

[EquALLity]

It's better not to chime in if you can't think of anything on the spot. But next time when they say that, or rather when you or someone else brings it up, you can come at them with a piece of your mind.

Yeah, and especially if you think you might have a factual issue, but your position seems to probably be correct. That would be counter-productive.

Like what miniboes and brimstone said, tell them to provide evidence for such claims. They're probably just saying it because they heard someone say it, or they're being sanctimonious on baseless assertions, or they're just blowing everything out of their asses.

Hahaha, yeah.

I think I disagree with you on that a bit. Sure, you're depressed, and you can't enjoy things that would make you happy and seeing everything being based on narcissism (being cynical), but in the end, you're the one who pulls the trigger. I guess you're trying to say that depression leads to suicide, which is pretty much common knowledge at this point. And you can't really control depression (unless you're just looking for attention), so I think it's being a total asshole when you say that suicide victims are cowards, when you really can't control your emotions, which leads to suicide. I view suicide as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you ask me, suicide is pretty selfish, as you are pretty much forgetting about everyone that cared about you. Unless, of course, you didn't have anyone that cared about you, then I guess that's different. Or if you know you're going to lose a war, and your ultimate demise in inevitable.

I don't disagree with most of what you wrote here.

But, as for the selfishness part... Hm. I guess, since it's to relieve your own pain etc. (I guess anything for personal pleasure is selfish), but it may still not be wrong, or it may be a justified wrong. I think that, at worst, it's a justified wrong, because it's relieving a very strong and serious pain.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

depressed people don't want to seek help

I can confirm the trueness of this statement with my own experience. I saw myself as the citadel of rational thought when I was depressed and thought that people trying to help me, despite their good intentions, would drag me back into a cesspool of irrationality and arbitrariness that they called happiness or wellbeing.

[Red]

(I guess anything for personal pleasure is selfish)

Now that statement is purely up to interpretation. If one faps every night, does that make me selfish? Not really, if no one is being harmed, or they're not allowing anyone from doing the same (don't). I guess in a way that's true, but personal pleasure for the sake of being a dick, I would consider that selfish.

But, as for the selfishness part... Hm. I guess, since it's to relieve your own pain etc. , but it may still not be wrong, or it may be a justified wrong. I think that, at worst, it's a justified wrong, because it's relieving a very strong and serious pain.

I would consider it justified wrong. Remember the last scene from "The Room"? Ok well maybe not, but Johnny commits suicide because he was betrayed by his best friend, his girlfriend, and didn't get his job promotion, then everyone mourns him when they find his body. Now this is quite confusing. His best friend betrayed him, yet he still mourns him.. I guess the intentions weren't selfish, as Johnny presumed that Mark (his friend) hated him. The same goes for his girlfriend and his adopted son (yeah he had an adopted son go figure). Maybe Johnny thought that no one cared about him anymore, and thus no one would care about his death. This also applies in real life, as scenarios exactly like this one do in fact happen, just more convincing than what happened in "The Room". So basically, Johnny wanted to relieve the pain of the betrayal of the people he thought cared about him. Now is that cowardly? No, because if you look at it from Johnny's eyes (his lazy, spastic, discombobulated eyes), it would seem that the whole world is against you. Like I said, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and I probably wouldn't kill myself if that happened to me (I would just go with a bit of rage not the suicide part), but I can see why people would do that if that ever happens to them.