Aggression and Suicide: A Critical Evaluation of the Suicide Prevention Ethic

Abstract

Suicide is generally assumed to be a tragic and wasteful act which all people should try to prevent. This assumption, and the assumption that suicide is a self-directed act of aggression, is examined in terms of its implications for society and for the individual who wishes to die. The concepts of social utility and hedonistic utility are introduced and used to suggest a dynamic model of those social and psychological factors which interact to create a predisposition to suicide and/or other forms of destructive behavior in the individual. Self-directed and outward-directed forms of destructive behavior are compared as coping measures for low hedonistic utility and are evaluated with respect to their relative cost to society and to the individual who makes use of them. Given our society's priorities for defining social utility, it is argued that many outward-directed acts of aggression may be more appropriately self-directed. It is concluded that for certain individuals suicide may now represent the most appropriate and efficacious solution to chronic conditions of low life-satisfaction, maladjustment, and despair.