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Defending Models for Rational Choice
Pro-life advocates typically have several objections to the presentation and application of models for rational choice to the issue of suicide. This article tries to address their concerns.
One can claim that the model is fatalistic, since it speaks about things getting better or worse as if individuals have no influence over their future lives, whereas in reality, it is up to our will to make our future better or worse.
Of course we have great influence over our lives, and people should do all that is in their power to change their lives for the better. However, a person considering suicide is considering whether efforts so far have resulted in something which is preferable to death or not. So, theoretically, such people who would use the model do acknowledge that they have influence over their future lives, it is just that from their past experience, their influence was such that their lives were worse than (or at least not much better than) death.
Reality is such that although we have much influence over our lives it is ultimately a limited influence. We have limited control over external events, the way other people react to us, our health, and the way we feel about it all. There are few people who are totally content with their lives. We would all like to be happier, yet we only manage to reach a certain level where we stop. For people considering suicide, this level is simply lower than most people.
It may be that a person considering suicide is not aware of something which he can do which will greatly improve his situation. To find out what this might be it would perhaps be wise to consult a mental health therapist. However, if nothing helps, a therapist would never admit that the chances for improvement are low, therefore, the responsibility to decide when the possibilities have been exhausted is left to the deliberating individual.
2) The Positive Value of Suffering
Recall that the model we presented uses a utility function which indicates the amount of pleasure or displeasure of an outcome. However, it could be claimed that suffering (i.e. displeasure) can be positive in some sense, and this supposedly upsets the foundation of the model, since it requires the assumption that displeasure is negative. However, with closer analysis, the model could easily be used with such cases as well.
For example, someone may decide to suffer for a higher cause. Is the suffering in such cases positive? Intuitively it may seem so, but a closer examination is required.
Consider a fakir lying on a bed of nails. He is suffering from physical pain, yet he does this willingly, since he derives satisfaction in overcoming the limitations of his body. Does the suffering have positive utility? To answer this it is important to distinguish between various utilities we can measure in this situation. There is the suffering resulting from the nails, the satisfaction in overcoming the pain, and the utility of the combined outcome which includes both the pain and the satisfaction. Obviously, this last utility is positive, otherwise the fakir would not chose to do such acts. Also, the satisfaction is of positive utility, however, the suffering from the nails has negative utility. In fact, the reason why the fakir derives satisfaction is precisely because the pain has negative utility.
Another example, Jill was ill. She was suffering and had a high temperature. She went to a doctor, and was cured. Eventually, she married that doctor. So was Jill's suffering positive? Without being ill she might have never met her future husband! Intuitively, we might say that getting ill was a positive outcome, and indeed the combined outcome was very positive, however taking just the utility of getting ill into consideration, it is negative.
To summarize, although intuitively suffering may be positive, what is actually positive are other outcomes which followed the suffering. It is these outcomes which are positive, perhaps overshadowing the suffering, however, the suffering itself still may be viewed as having negative utility.
3) Empirical Evidence of Irrationality
The theory for rational decision seems to suggest that people can calmly and rationally make decisions about suicide. However, suicidologists claim that suicidal people do not think this way, for example, they claim that suicidal people have tunnel vision, are poor problem-solvers and so on. So the model of rational decision is perhaps interesting, but it is impractical and unrealistic.
Indeed it may be true that the model is impractical to apply and it is unrealistic to expect suicidal people to use it. However, it is a normative model. In research psychology, normative models are formal, perfect, and ideal, however, these are not the models people use. The limitations of our brains force us to adopt heuristics and rules of thumb which are helpful in some cases but lead to erroneous conclusions in others. The way people arrive to conclusions in practice is described by a descriptive model.
The descriptive model describes how people behave in practice. The normative model is an ideal, suggestion for how people should behave in order to obtain perfect results. Although it is usually not humanly possible to exactly follow a normative model, contrasting between the descriptive and normative models can lead to new insights which could be used to improve ones conclusions.
The normative model can be useful, for example, in dealing with some of the irrational arguments made be mental health professionals, such as the notion that, for a person considering suicide, if there is some hope of improvement (no matter how small) then this means that the person should continue to live. According to the same logic, we should all go to Vegas and gamble all the money we have, since in each gamble we make there is some hope (even if it is very small) that we will win, thus we must pursue this chance. Using the normative model, it is easy to see the irrationality in such argumentation.
Mental health professionals do not inform their patients of normative models for rational suicide, or offer any information about making such a decision. This, in addition to the therapists own irrational argumentation, confuses the suicidal and compromises their rationality. Thus the irrationality mental health professionals attribute to suicidal people may in fact be caused by the mental health establishment and the atmosphere it induces on society.
EverDawn
