Philosophy And Suicide Essay Research Paper Suicide

Philosophy And Suicide Essay, Research Paper

Suicide has always been common throughout history, reaching back as far as the beginning of civilization. Reasons for taking one’s life could range from preserving personal honor, physical decline, and love for a dead spouse, to spiritual reasons like the search for truth, becoming closer to virtue, or the belief their death could advance a cause. The religious and philosophical outlook of the period in which a person lived helped to shape their view and society’s view on suicide. This outlook also determined the motives or reasons a person might take their own life. To see how a certain era could persuade such views and motives, I will look at the Hellenic and Hellenistic Ages, the Roman Empire, the Old and New Testament, and the early Christian era for the connection between people’s religion or philosophical beliefs and suicide. The first period used as evidence of the way certain time periods shaped beliefs of suicide is the Hellenic Age. To start with, the Hellenic Age began around 800 BC and was marked by growing economic wealth and the start of an efficient writing system. This writing system led to the rise of authors and intellectuals, one of the most well known being Homer during this period. His epics helped to shape the religious beliefs of the Greek people in the early Hellenic Age. At first people relied on the mythological deities of epics like Homer’s to explain worldly events. As time wore on, intellectuals such as Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoras began applying reason to Greek religion and to the understanding of natural phenomenon and human events. This new found theory led to the replacing of Homer’s mythology with reason, and people started to question why certain events occurred in the world. One of the human events these intellectuals tried to explain with reasoning was suicide. Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, were against the act of suicide. They believed as a punishment for sins in an earlier life, the soul was entrapped in the body. Therefore suicide seemed to them similar to a prisoner escaping from jail and not serving their sentence for a crime. Suicide was unacceptable to Pythagoras and his followers who thought a person has to pay for sins committed in an earlier life (Wiesner pg. 96). This view on suicide was just one of the Hellenic Age. If a person was not a Pythagorean, their view on suicide could be somewhat different. An example of this contrast in beliefs is Socrates and his followers. For these people, their goal in life as philosophers was to attain truth, knowledge, and wisdom. To attain these things mentioned, the soul must be apart from the body, which hinders reasoning by deceiving a person through such things as sight and sound. As long as the soul is in the body it is contaminated by evil and cannot reach truth. Therefore suicide to Socrates and those who shared his beliefs meant a short cut to finally find pure knowledge without having to wait for nature to take its course. In Plato’s book The Phaedo Socrates says, “And in this way, freeing ourselves from the foolishness of the body and being pure, we shall, I think, be with the pure and shall know ourselves all that is pure-and that is, perhaps, the truth” (Wiesner pg. 83). Socrates’ view was not accepted by most people and led to his execution after being found guilty by the courts. The quote above was stated right before he was to be injected with poison, which clearly shows he welcomed death. The next period to note as influential in shaping beliefs was the Hellenistic Age. The Hellenistic Age began after Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, therefore stretching his reign to India. The vast land that Alexander’s empire reached caused Greeks to be in contact with eastern ideas that helped reshape their thoughts yet again. This new philosophy showed a conquest for individual intellectual peace, instead of the peace of the city-state that was taught in the Hellenic Age. One of the philosophies that came out of the Hellenistic Age was Stoicism led by the philosopher Zeno, who himself committed suicide after breaking a bone in a minor accident which to him was a sign of physical decline. Stoicism carried the belief that all people were of one city and one race having one life and order. The order was received through divine reason, or Logos, which people could choose to reject. The virtuous person, although, would strive to achieve happiness by living in harmony with the Logos. Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher, writes in his book Discourses about suicide. He believes that suicide is acceptable as a Stoic when one cannot live in accord with reason and the Logos. Even though Stoics believed one should accept life’s trials as part of the overall plan of the universe, if a person could not live with the plans of the Logos there was really no sense in living (Wiesner pg. 69). Another philosophy during the Hellenistic Age that shaped people’s beliefs was led by Epicurus and known as Epicureanism. He taught that people should withdraw from public affairs and social responsibilities. People should abandon the pursuit of worldly success and seek spiritual tranquility instead. Epicurus also believed that the world consisted of matter made up of atoms that were released after death. Therefore to him and his followers suicide meant nothing because after death the body has no feeling (Wiesner pg. 84). Epicureanism was more of a