Motivation

Classifying cases according to the motivation behind the (supposed) suicide act is perhaps the most difficult issue relating to the definition of suicide. The most common problem is whether altruistically motivated self-killings are suicides.

Margolis defines suicide as "the deliberate taking of one's life in order simply to end it, not instrumentally for any ulterior purpose " [1]. People who die in order to benefit others have a different end, thus, according to Margolis, these cases are not suicides, and in general, altruistic suicides are not possible. However, such a definition excludes too many cases of supposed suicide. Even in many non-altruistic suicides, death is not the end, rather it is a means, for example, to alleviate suffering. Margolis' definition is intuitive, it is not precise enough.

Even so, there are cases, where altruistic self-killing might not to be suicide[2]:

• A pilot in a plane running out of fuel decides to stay in the plane and crash it in an unpopulated area, instead of getting out using a parachute, but taking the risk that the plane will crash in a populated area.
• A soldier leaps onto a live hand grenade and covers it with his body to save his fellow soldiers.
• A person who burns himself in political protest.
• A man killing himself for life insurance, to benefit his family.

It is possible to use other words to describe the cases above. The first two are heroic acts. The third is a case of martyrdom. The fourth case seems the most likely to be called altruistic suicide.

Another difficult issue is whether coerced self-killing could be called a suicide[3]. Here are several examples:

1. A captured soldier is given a choice to be painfully executed, or to kill himself. He decides to kill himself.
2. A person discovering that he has terminal cancer, shoots himself to avoid a painful death.

In both these cases, the circumstances coerce the person into action. Seemingly, they have chosen to commit suicide. However, we normally associate suicide with free choice, whereas here, the choice is performed under coercion.

Similar to Margolis' definition, O'Keefe [4] defines suicide as "the act of a person who noninstrumentally intends his death". In intrsumental self-killings, the acts are performed for some other purposes such as heroism, the salvation of others, political protest, etc. In addition O'Keefe suggests a postmorterm verification of for determining whether a self-killing is a suicide: Suppose that the dead person is somehow revived. The reaction of the true suicide, the noninstrumental self-killer, would request to be put back to death. The non-suicide instrumental self-killer would be glad to be alive again.

More complex distinctions are provided in [2].

REFERENCES

[1] Joseph Margolis, "Negativities: The Limits of Life", 1975, pp 23-36.

[2] William E. Tolhurst, "Suicide, Self-Sacrifice, and Coercion", In The Southern Journal of Philosophy 21, 1983, pp 109-121.

[3] Tom L. Beauchamp, "Suicide," Matter of Life and Death, ed. Tom Regan, 1980.

[4] Terence M. O'Keeffe, "Suicide and Self-Starvation", in Philosophy 56, 1981, pp 349-363.