Born in 1225, Thomas Aquinas was an Italian priest and a philosopher. Born in 1711 in Scotland, David Hume was a philosopher as well. Both undoubtedly influential, each of them present us with different views on the topic of ‘Suicide’. In this essay I will examine Aquinas’ arguments against the moral permissibility of Suicide and Hume’s objections to these to argue that it is. Hume present us with a more defensible position because ….
– Theory approaches
Thomas Aquinas present us with a theological approach to this topic. He argues the moral impermissibility of Suicide because of the violation of three main duties: “one’s duty to God, to others, and to oneself” . Even though he gives several different arguments to back up his objection to suicide, his argument could be reduce to a simple line: “God created us and only he has the right to dispose of our lives; we do not have this right”.
Humes gives us at least one argument as a response to each of the three reasons why Aquinas believes suicide to be morally impermissible, and tries to “show that even on theistic ground, suicide is not actually prohibited”. In order to gives us his counter arguments, he had to assume the view that Aquinas’ has of the world. He believes that Aquinas has a Deist conception of the world. Deism is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “Belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.” This view is based on the belief that God created certain laws that are what govern us.
– Aquinas views and Hume’s objections
Aquinas’ first argument states that suicide is morally wrong because everybody pursues the conservation and wellbeing of oneself, so therefore, killing oneself is contrary to natural inclination, […] is always a mortal sin . What he means by this, is that suicide is contrary to our instinct to preserve life, which is given to us by God.
Hume’s disagrees with this statement, and says that because to our natural instinct of survival due to our natural horror of death, no man or woman would kill themselves if life was worth living.
Moreover, in his second argument he states that every man is part of a community, and has a duty not to harm this community but to benefit it. Since suicide would harm the community, then suicide can not be morally permissible, and states that this is proven to us by Ethics, Book V.
On the contrary, Hume believes that committing suicide does not have to harm the community, in fact, it can benefit it and it is justified if your contribution to this community is not as big as the pain or misery of the one that commits suicide.
Finally, in the third, he ensures that life is a gift given to us by God, and it is his decision to choose who dies. Committing suicide would violate God’s right to determine “who kills and makes to live” (Summa Theologiae I-II Q64 Art.5
To this, Hume says that there are two options. Either God decides all of our decisions, or he grant us with self-determination. If the case was the first option, then oneself committing suicide would not be violating God’s right to determine our fate, because he would be the one choosing it. If it were the second option, then again, it would not be against God’s right or will because he granted us with self-determination therefore granted us with the opportunity to choose to keep or live or not.
He also objects that if it were to be God’s decision as to when our lives end, then trying to extend or lives in any way would also interfere with his decision. Basically, if God’s decides what happens to us, then any act that is interferes with God’s will is morally impermissible.
Hume contends that if suicide were to violate God’s will, then he would have made laws to prevent it. But not ending or prolonging our lives interferes with His will because both actions are permitted by the laws that He has created. So, in other words, if suicide was against God’s will, then the laws that He created that govern the universe would prevent it if it were truly morally impermissible.
However, this would imply that things that happen, such us murder o rape are morally permissible. If Hume is not able to make a distinction between murder and suicide, then is his argument valid?
Hume’s biggest mistake was to assume that God’s laws prevent anything and everything from happening, since he forgot one of the most important concepts of the Thomistica view: the concept of free will. Thinking that God’s laws are what makes things go the way they go is contrary to several of the beliefs of christianity like Heaven. Because a sin is something that the person knows is wrong, but still chooses to do, and the Christian belief is that depending on your actions you will be rewarded or punished.
And therefore, what Hume is trying to say is that moral rights and wrongs are not determined by whether they pleasure or offend God.