Analysis of Suicide by David Hume

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Analysis of Of Suicide by David Hume

"I believe that no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping." In David Hume's essay "Of Suicide," the philosophical argument of justified suicide is pursued. However, the underlying argument focuses on the injustification of the government and society condemning and forbidding such an action and the creation of superstitions and falsehoods of religion and God.

Hume argues that the last phases that a person goes through before taking his life is those of "disorder, weakness, insensibility, and stupidity," and that those traits, when obvious to the mind, doom him to a death by his own decision. He states that no being in any facet of life can continue life when "transferred to a condition of life very different from the original one, in which it was placed."

I wish that Hume had argued this point more because I think that he is right, and its probably universal knowledge, that the traits a person acquires before suicide are those described. However, the latter part of the argument suggests that a drastic change in one's life, a change in condition so different in condition from the original, would thereby lead one to the condemned phases, as listed above. This argument holds water to only those who choose suicide from change. Is it not heat that makes that which is cold, hot (Sorry, I had to throw that Socratic argument in there somewhere)? Seriously though, what of a person born into poverty and misery? Are they too doomed to the arms of suicide? One who is born into poverty and misery was "originally" in a place of comfort, where disorder, stupidity, etc. where not phases nor traits that were known or felt. Isn't this also considered a transfer of condition of...

... middle of paper ...

...led "misery," and at times I've seen myself in the phases Hume describes, but I would not consider ending the miserable times by ending the totality.

Superstition and falsity in religion are flaws of the human mind, which like actions are codependent upon everything else. In essence God is a superstition and not proven to exist, but the "superstition" that God does exist plays a very large role in many lives and consequently changes the directions and actions of lives, which in many cases consequently leads to a life free of the traits Hume describes as being the path to suicide. In regard to the quote in the first paragraph, "I believe that no man ever threw away life…," I believe that every life is worth living, vile or pure, because if the life is not worth living, then why was given life at all?

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"Of Suicide" by David Hume

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