2. Aristotle’s view on suicide
• The law does not openly permit or forbid
suicide, but the state punishes suicide as the
person is treating the state unjustly as he
suffers voluntarily but no one is voluntarily
treated unjustly…
• Suicide is somehow a wrong to the state,
though he does not specify how or why.
• He cares little for the role of the individual and
their autonomy, and looks more to their social
roles and obligations.
3. Roman Orators and Stoics
• Roman Stoic Senena: “mere living is not a good, but living
well”, hence a wise person “lives as long as he ought, not as
long as he can.”
• For Seneca, it is the quality, not the quantity, of one’s life
that matters.
• However, this quality is based more on a communal quality
than an individual quality, therefore killing yourself because
of suffering etc would be unjust unless it was getting in the
way of achieving your lifes purpose.
• The Stoics held that whenever the means to living a
naturally flourishing life are not available to us, suicide
might be justified, regardless of the character or virtue of
the individual in question.
4. Could virtue theory be compatible
with Euthanasia….?
If one is in the state of being unable to
achieve Eudaimonia and human flourishing,
then living would seem pointless….
