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No King and No Torture: Kant on Suicide and Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2016

Jennifer Uleman
Jennifer Uleman*
Affiliation:
Purchase College, State University of New York
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Kant’s most canonical argument against suicide, the universal law argument, is widely dismissed. This paper attempts to save it, showing that a suicide maxim, universalized, undermines all bases for practical law, resisting both the non-negotiable value of free rational willing and the ordinary array of sensuous commitments that inform prudential incentives. Suicide therefore undermines moral law-governed community as a whole, threatening ‘savage disorder’. In pursuing this argument, I propose a non-teleological and non-theoretical nature – a ‘practical nature’ or moral law governed whole – the realization of which morality demands.

Keywords

Kantsuicidemoral lawpractical naturemoral communitylawlessness
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 77 - 100
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2016 

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