Objectivism and Suicide?
As the ultimate act of ownership, authority and self-determination, is choosing to do something that could, or likely, result in your demise considered suicide? Eg. Joining the military during a time of war? To drastically reduce your caloric intake for a prolonged period of time to lose weight? Refusing life saving treatment? Being a policeman or fireman? Choosing to confront an armed thug who is demanding something of yours? Attempting to sail around the world with very little experience and no seasoned crew?
Each of those shape up to be a situation where eventually, in time, the person making the decision could likely die. Is it suicide?
Each of those shape up to be a situation where eventually, in time, the person making the decision could likely die. Is it suicide?
Society regards only the personal seeking of one's own death as the immediate goal as suicide. What you present is the idea of suicide as a spectrum of personal risk, rather than a singularity. I would say you are in an extreme minority with this position.
Short answer: NO
Dr _ saw something about himself that probably promised a future death from a disease (likely a cancer) that he chose not to face. This was probably in the doctor's opinion was what led to the sudden suicide. We concluded that although we could never be certain that Dr _'s choice was very probably a rational decision. For whatever our guesses were worth this made it easier to understand and accept the loss of a very talented individual. No one can be certain if had he continued how many lives he might have prolonged nor how much it would have cost him but the point is moot as he made his choice and the doctor I visited with and I considered it likely a rational decision. Not worth a whole lot but it is my opinion.
To me, suicide would be the opposite of getting that job, as I would end up starving to death.
John Galt purposefully endangered his own life, returning for Dagny, but it would have been a kind of suicide for him, if he hadn't, as life would no longer have been worth living.
That is the objective: some would say that first trip across the Rearden Steel Bridge might have been "suicidal" but it was merely a well calculated risk.
The post modernist, the far left, the misguided teachings would call this: Altruism.
It's a rare case that a Conscious Human would choose,.. to die for a cause, die to save another, or die in the process of exploration or war.
We all would bet against the odds and take the risk...hoping to survive; and that is the key. I think, a Conscious Human, in good mental health would always hold the hope, the insistence, the arrogance, to survive when taking such risks.
Only the mentally insane, a nonconscious person, a person at the end of his rope... would commit suicide. That is not being objective...it takes awareness to be objective.