Heidegger

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Van: heidegger-bounces at soca.ecu.edu.au namens Philip Baker
Verzonden: zo 30-7-2006 23:06
Aan: heidegger at soca.ecu.edu.au
Onderwerp: Re: Aristotle on suicide [was Heidegger Email List?]

In article , Anthony Crifasi
writes
>—– Original Message —–
>From: “Philip Baker”
>
>
>> In article , Anthony Crifasi
>> writes
>>>no need to appeal to wacko godders:
>>>
>>>”the man who voluntarily kills himself … acts unjustly… And it is in
>>>view of this that the state imposes a penalty by attaching a certain
>>>dishonor to those who kill themselves…” (Aristotle, Nich. Ethics,
>>>1138a10-14)
>>
>>
>> Why don’t you fill in the dots?
>
>”But the man who voluntarily kills himself through anger does so in
>violation of right reason, and the law does not permit this, so he acts
>unjustly.”
>
>> Aristotle says suicide is an unjust act because the law forbids it, but
>> do any list members live under the jurisdiction of any 4th century BC
>> Greek city state?
>
>Aristotle says first that it is in violation of right reason. That is a
>condemnation independent of the law.
>

The translation I have available has this passage:

“Whether a man can treat himself unjustly or not, is evident from
what has been said. For (a) one class of just acts are those acts in
accordance with any virtue which are prescribed by the law; e.g. the
law does not expressly permit suicide, and what it does not
expressly permit it forbids. Again, when a man in violation of the
law harms another (otherwise than in retaliation) voluntarily, he
acts unjustly, and a voluntary agent is one who knows both the
person he is affecting by his action and the instrument he is using;
and he who through anger voluntarily stabs himself does this contrary
to the right rule of life, and this the law does not allow; therefore
he is acting unjustly. But towards whom? Surely towards the state,
not towards himself. For he suffers voluntarily, but no one is
voluntarily treated unjustly. This is also the reason why the state
punishes; a certain loss of civil rights attaches to the man who
destroys himself, on the ground that he is treating the state
unjustly.”

The main aim of the passage is to consider whether a man can act
unjustly against himself. Aristotle’s answer appears to be that he
cannot do so. Suicide is used as an example because in a sense it is the
ultimate in self harm. Aristotle says suicide is unjust because it an
injustice towards the state and this is made explicit in the law against
suicide. Since Aristotle is not a legal positivist and believes the
state is capable of making laws which on consideration can be seen as
bad laws, he adds that suicide goes against the ‘right rule of life’ or
‘right reason’. So he is taking the law against suicide as an acceptable
law rather than one wrongly conceived. There could be a problem of
translation here since ‘right rule of life’ and ‘right reason’ don’t
necessarily mean the same thing as each other in English and it is not
clear to me that saying that some act is against right reason implies an
assertion that the act is necessarily morally wrong.

It is also not clear whether ‘he who through anger voluntarily stabs
himself’ is to be taken as an example of any suicide or a particular
type of suicide. Killing oneself in a fit of anger seems strange to the
modern mind. Again there may be a problem in translation.

For Aristotle killing oneself is an act of injustice that harms the
polis, the collective citizen body, presumably because the suicide is
depriving the polis of his services like taking up arms in its defence

But the modern state is a long way from the ancient Greek polis and we
do not think of the citizen’s relation to the state in the same way. We
conceive this to be more of a contractual nature. More explicitly we
often do not have any law against suicide (and a ancient legal system
where ‘what it does not expressly permit it forbids’ has here a concept
alien to many modern legal systems).

Aristotle never appears to consider the emotional and material harm a
suicide can do to relatives and dependants, unless for him such harm
cannot be separated from the harm to the polis as a whole.

We all know that in fact in many parts of the pre-Christian and
non-Christian worlds suicide is not only acceptable in certain
instances but in some circumstances is taken to be the only honourable
thing to do.
–
Philip Baker
winmail.dat

Posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
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