[1531] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: and for your entertainment...
celine@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (celine@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Oct 9 19:04:03 1990
There's nothing cowardly about suicide. It takes a lot of guts to make
a change that will result in a completely unknown state. The view that
the option of taking one's life is "the easy way out" is kind of silly,
if the agent believes life is not inherently valuable there's no utility
in it's maintenence, *for that agent*. His or her parents, friends, etc
might have place a value on that agent's life. How important their wants
are in making this decision is another matter the agent might consider.
The agent might consider life an opportunity to do things they want to do,
in which case it might not be considered "internally valuable" but rather
"valuable only as a means to an end". Such a life would also commonly be
considered to have some maintenence utility. If it is neither the case
that this is held to be true or that the agent believes life is "inherently""
valuable, existence perpetuation seems in conflict with the beliefs of the
agent, and if one were sufficiently brave one could make the consistent
choice.
