The Limits of Rationality: Rationality, Suicidality, and Affectivity
In this project, I expose conceptual and moral difficulties with the concept of
rational suicide. After offering a comprehensive list of criteria used to define rationality
in the bioethics literature, I turn to the scholarship of Susan Sherwin, Susan Wolf,
Rosemarie Tong, Lisa Ikemoto and others to apply feminist critiques regarding the
privileging of the liberal individual and claims of value neutrality in bioethics generally
to the rational suicide literature specifically. Further, using the work of Genevieve Lloyd,
I argue that just as definitions of rationality have been used to marginalize vulnerable
populations (e.g., women and minorities), a similar marginalization of suiciders occurs in
the rational suicide literature. In order to rectify this marginalization, I call on Jean
Am ry's account of his own suicidality, and through exegesis of On Suicide: A Discourse
on Voluntary Death, I argue that Am ry's account reveals that suicidality is neither
rational nor irrational, but arational. Given that in some instances of the lived experience
of suicidality, discussions of rationality are not applicable, I question the efficacy of
"rational suicide" as the concept upon which to ground arguments for the moral
permissibility of suicide and assisted suicide. Finally, having established both conceptual
and moral difficulties with the concept of rational suicide, I argue for a new concept upon
which to base arguments for the moral permissibility of suicide, appropriate death.
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