“I think I will not hang myself to-day”

From Poetry Online comes the classic poem on suicide by G.K. Chesterton.

A Ballade of Suicide
G.K. Chesterton

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall;
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours on the wall
Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"
The strangest whim has seized me. . . After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

To-morrow is the time I get my pay
My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall
I see a little cloud all pink and grey
Perhaps the rector's mother will NOT call
I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way
I never read the works of Juvenal
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The world will have another washing-day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H.G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;
Rationalists are growing rational
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
So secret that the very sky seems small
I think I will not hang myself to-day.


ENVOI

Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even to-day your royal head may fall
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

Actually, Chesterton’s poem is quite upbeat in that suicide is being set aside day after day because life and world are not as bad as initially thought as the day begins.

It is interesting to read about society’s view of suicide down through the ages. Lance Stell, an ethicist, writing recently on a bioethics listserv noted:

Suicide isn't a crime anymore. But at common law it was, involving as
Blackstone colorfully put it, a double offense - against the King, who
has an interest in the preservation of all his subjects and against God,
for rushing into the presence of the Almighty, uncalled for. [Although
Locke said something similar by way of explaining why the jurisdiction
we have over our lives isn't a property right, Blackstone's theological
imagery is interesting to reflect on for a few minutes].

On the thought that suicide is a very serious matter and should be
criminal, the problem arises - how to punish offenders.
Lawyers proved up to the task - the suicide's estate would be taken by
the Crown, burial in sacred ground was prevented, the body would be
desecrated. Powerful deterrents to such willful wrongdoing!

The African Ashanti proved more inventive still. If a suicide were
buried prior to a legal investigation, the corpse was ordered dug up and
put on trial for murder (I assume w/o the privilege of cross-examining
witnesses).

From Wikipedia:

“Ironically, the punishment for attempted suicide in some jurisdictions has been death. In addition, suicide can have other legal consequences. For example, in the United Kingdom prior to 1961 their estate was forfeited.
The United Kingdom decriminalized suicide and attempted suicide in the Suicide Act 1961. By the early 1990s only two US states still listed suicide as a crime, and these have since removed that classification. Increasingly, the term commit suicide is being consciously avoided, as it implies that suicide is a crime by equating it with other acts that are committed, such as murder or burglary.”

Discussing the past philosophical thought regarding suicide, an article in Wikipedia presents these further views:

… Thomas Szasz would argue that suicide is the most basic right of all. If freedom is self-ownership, ownership over one's own life and body, then the right to end that life is the most basic of all. If others can force you to live, you do not own yourself, and belong to them.

It is important to note that the liberal view above is not associated with classical liberalism; John Stuart Mill, for instance, argued in his influential essay On Liberty that since the sine qua non of liberty is the power of the individual to make choices, any choice that one might make that would deprive him or her of the ability to make further choices should be prevented. Thus, for Mill, selling oneself into slavery or killing oneself should be prevented, in order to avoid precluding the ability to make further choices. Concerning these matters, Mill writes in On Liberty:

“Not only persons are not held to engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an engagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most other civilized countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. But by selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it, beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a position which has no longer the presumption in its favor, that would be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom.”

Philosophical thinking in the 19th and 20th century has led, in some cases, beyond thinking in terms of pro-choice, to the point that suicide is no longer a last resort, or even something that one must justify, but something that one must justify not doing. Existentialist thinking essentially begins with the premise that life is objectively meaningless, and then poses the question "why not just kill oneself?". It then proceeds to answer this by suggesting the individual has the power to give personal meaning. Nihilist thinkers reject this emphasis on the power of the individual to create meaning, and acknowledge that all things are equally meaningless, including suicide.

On the other hand, some thinkers have had positive or at least neutral views on suicide. Some of the pessimist philosophers (Nietzsche, Goethe, Schopenhauer) see suicide - or knowing that at any time, one can escape the suffering of life - as the greatest comfort in life. Herodotus wrote "When life is so burdensome death has become for man a sought after refuge". Schopenahuer affirmed "They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person". In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche discusses the importance of "dying at the right time", claiming that one must not outlive his work (or "purpose") of life.

Unlike Chesterton, ruminating about suicide but finding an excuse against attempting, people, of course, do think about suicide and act it out.

One may find an ethical issue involving physicians who care for attempted suicide victims. If we, as physicians, save their lives are we violating their autonomous right to decide about their own life? Can we always excuse our resuscitation on the basis that the patient is depressed and their attempt is not purely voluntary? Is there, as I have mentioned in previous postings, such an act as a rational suicide attempt? How about if we decide not to interfere, especially if a patient says by voice or note not to interfere, are we thus aiding and abetting the suicide? Is this in a sense an "assisted suicide"? And then comes the issue of true intentional medically assisted suicide but that demands a different posting on another day. ..Maurice.