Thomist answer: is this suicide?

[devoutchristian]

newadvent.org/summa/3064.htm#article5

The closest example sited by Aquinas would be the case of Sampson:

I think the space ship example given is suicide. But I am not altogether sure. Christ did talk of laying down one’s life for another.

Aquinas basically says that Sampson did commit suicide, but was permitted because God could suspend the normative moral law during the era of public revelation. And it should also be noted that Samson’s bodily injury was not directly required for his action.

 

[aquohn]

Hmm. Samson seems to be a pretty clear-cut case of double effect if you ask me.

How about a couple more examples, from popular culture?

1. The Exorcist. The priest, Father Karras, is possessed by a demon and jumps out the window, fatally wounding himself and stopping it. Suicide?
2. The Percy Jackson series of books, if anyone here has read it, perchance. Luke, one of the major characters, stabs himself in his Achilles’ heel to stop Kronos, the main villain, who is possessing him, and dies shortly after as a result. Suicide?

I think both of these cases (or perhaps all three of them, including my space station scenario) can essentially be reduced to having to undergo a very dangerous, and most likely lethal surgical procedure to stop a disease that will, against the laws of physics and biology, result in, say, a cataclysmic nuclear explosion or something that causes grave harm to both the community and oneself. Of course, there is the crucial distinction of the fact that these three situations have no natural chance of survival, but does that have significant bearing on the issue?

 

[GEddie]

This is, in all likelihood, an impossible hypothetical; as the total energy conversion of one human soma would liberate a multimegaton explosion. The space station would be destroyed.

The fact that in this instance, the soma is predicted to be destroyed, is different only in method from other sacrifice scenarios. Death can be certain with the soma intact, and it is the life, not the intact form, that is important.

A man driving a crippled truck off an embankment to avoid hitting a school bus is a sacrifice, not a suicide.

Is the captain in U571 a murderer when he orders the young man to drown to save the mission?

We should not assume that technological conditions foreign to our life create a whole new moral problem. Human life is the same.

ICXC NIKA

 

[aquohn]

This is, in all likelihood, an impossible hypothetical; as the total energy conversion of one human soma would liberate a multimegaton explosion. The space station would be destroyed.

The fact that in this instance, the soma is predicted to be destroyed, is different only in method from other sacrifice scenarios. Death can be certain with the soma intact, and it is the life, not the intact form, that is important.

A man driving a crippled truck off an embankment to avoid hitting a school bus is a sacrifice, not a suicide.

Is the captain in U571 a murderer when he orders the young man to drown to save the mission?

We should not assume that technological conditions foreign to our life create a whole new moral problem. Human life is the same.

ICXC NIKA

Scientific issues aside, I think the main concern here is that, for example, swerving over an edge most likely results in destruction of the human body, while all of these other scenarios necessitate the destruction of the human body.

As devoutchristian points out (and I was worried about), making one’s body impervious to damage would not thwart the bus driver or Steve Rogers jumping on a (live) grenade, while it would all the others. Indeed, it would not even thwart a suicide bomber. But a miraculous revival after the deed was done would not thwart any of these scenarios, though it would thwart the classic case of a teenager giving up on life and jumping out the window. Thus the question is: does a scenario that fails the first test of invulnerability count as suicide, or do we draw the line at the second test of revival?

 

[GEddie]

Scientific issues aside, I think the main concern here is that, for example, swerving over an edge most likely results in destruction of the human body, while all of these other scenarios necessitate the destruction of the human body.

As devoutchristian points out (and I was worried about), making one’s body impervious to damage would not thwart the bus driver or Steve Rogers jumping on a (live) grenade, while it would all the others. Indeed, it would not even thwart a suicide bomber. But a miraculous revival after the deed was done would not thwart any of these scenarios, though it would thwart the classic case of a teenager giving up on life and jumping out the window. Thus the question is: does a scenario that fails the first test of invulnerability count as suicide, or do we draw the line at the second test of revival?

Invoking invulnerable bodies or miraculous resurrections does not, ITASM, make anything clearer. By altering the basic conditions of human life, it sets up a non-human frame of reference, which tells us nothing about morality in the human soma.

IMNAAHO, of course.

ICXC NIKA

 

[devoutchristian]

Thus the question is: does a scenario that fails the first test of invulnerability count as suicide, or do we draw the line at the second test of revival?

Live donation of a heart would pass the revival test, yet it would be immoral. Actually, I think that the invincibility test is too permissive, as it would allow a suicide bomber to not be guilty of suicide, but that’s another thread.

 

[devoutchristian]

Hmm. Samson seems to be a pretty clear-cut case of double effect if you ask me.

Aquinas seems to suggest that Samson did commit suicide, but was morally permitted to do so because of special divine sanction, which of course is not a factor in modern moral dilemmas.