Suicide - can it be justified?

[dominikus28]

I was just thinking about war and torture, and I thought of the Knights Templar, where the Grand Master De Maloy was tortured and he eventually confessed to the things he was being accused of even though they were not true.
Then I thought of torture during war in the modern context and considered the situation of a soldier who has sensitive information and knows he will be tortured. Most likely, he will not be able to stay quiet under such extreme torture, so in order to prevent himself from revealing information which the enemy will then use to the detriment of his people/country, would he be justified in committing suicide?

It may sound extreme but consider this. Killing is wrong because it is taking the life of another human, which only God can take away because He gave it. But, killing in self-defense is justified because your intent isnt to take the life away, but only to prevent that person from taking your life, and n order to stop him, you must incapacitate him, by taking his life away. So in this case, your intent is to save yourself, not directly to kill him.

If you apply this to the suicide case, your intent is to save your people by preventing sensitive information from being revealed to the enemy. You know that your will isn’t strong enough to resist extreme torture, so you know that if you are submitted to it, you will reveal those secrets. So your intent is to prevent sensitive information from being revealed to the enemy not directly, to kill yourself. So your motive here is selfless not selfish.

Thoughts?

 

[Nelka]

Catechism:

2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.
Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbour because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

2325 Suicide is seriously contrary to justice, hope, and charity. It is forbidden by the fifth commandment.

 

[Joe_5859]

The ends does not justify the means. That would be consequentialism, which has never been the Catholic standpoint.

I know many films/TV shows like to bring up these extreme scenarios to make us question what the moral thing to do would be.

I would encourage you to read through Blessed John Paul II’s excellent encyclical Veritatis Splendor. Here is a particularly relevant passage:

81. In teaching the existence of intrinsically evil acts, the Church accepts the teaching of Sacred Scripture. The Apostle Paul emphatically states: “Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).

If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it. They remain “irremediably” evil acts; per se and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person. “As for acts which are themselves sins (cum iam opera ipsa peccata sunt), Saint Augustine writes, like theft, fornication, blasphemy, who would dare affirm that, by doing them for good motives (causis bonis), they would no longer be sins, or, what is even more absurd, that they would be sins that are justified?”.134

Consequently, circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act “subjectively” good or defensible as a choice.