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Choosing death: the moral status of suicide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Femi Oyebode
Femi Oyebode*
Affiliation:
Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital Mindelsohn Way, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2QZ
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Our moral conception of suicide is examined. It is argued that a neutral definition of suicide is difficult to achieve and that how we treat the Question of suicide shows what value we place on the sanctity of Me or on life as a means to other ends. The case is made that autonomy, the principle of self-governance, has acquired special importance in the modem world to me detriment of other ethical principles such as beneficence.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , February 1996 , pp. 85 - 89
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1996

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