[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 10:18:02 -0800 (PST)
--- On Sun, 11/30/08, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
*It's an important moral problem being (like homicide in this sense) an
action that destroys rational moral agency, yet we feel that it might in some
cases be permissible, perhaps more likely to be permissible than homicide which
destroys not one's own rational agency but that of another. Why it's an
interesting philosophical problem I hope that I have already shown.
DM: This is a small triumph of hope over logical adversity. It is unclear why
suicide is especially interesting as a _philosophical problem_. What is perhaps
interesting, but hardly needs the helping hand of a philosopher to pick over, is
why someone might commit suicide and whether the act might in certain
circumstances be thought justified and not in other circumstances. But this kind
of issue can be replicated across the board of moral dilemmas without those
dilemmas being thought to raise _sui generis_ philosophical problems.
OK: I don't want to go on about this as 'interesting' is a largely subjective
category and I don't think it is
possible to convince someone to find something interesting by a purely logical
argument. However, the long list (by no mean exhaustive) of philosophers
referenced in the article who devoted their attention to sucide shows that they
considered it an important and/or interesting philosophical problem.
O.K.
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