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Philosophical
Perspectives
on Suicide
Kant, Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein

Paolo Stellino
Philosophical Perspectives on Suicide
 Paolo Stellino

Philosophical
Perspectives on
Suicide
Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
and Wittgenstein
Paolo Stellino
Nova Institute of Philosophy
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
LISBOA, Portugal

ISBN 978-3-030-53936-8    ISBN 978-3-030-53937-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53937-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2020
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 Preface

According to Baruch Spinoza, “a free person thinks about death less than
anything, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life”
(Ethics, IV, 67). Writing a book on the philosophy of suicide does not
necessarily mean to meditate on death. This is what I tried to explain—
often with no success—to all those friends and colleagues that in recent
years kept asking me why I had chosen to work on such a gloomy subject.
Of course, I could have reminded them of Camus’ well-known opening
words of The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is but one truly serious philosophi-
cal problem and that is suicide.” But the fact is that whereas I am not
persuaded by Camus’ claim, I am truly convinced that meditating on
suicide means, to a great extent, meditating on fundamental questions
that directly concern life, not death. Among others, these questions are:
How do we conceive our obligations to society, friends, and family?
Which is the set of moral values according to which we choose to orien-
tate our life? Which is the value that we give to our autonomy and free-
dom? Is this value non-negotiable? And how do we conceive dignity? Is it
a “property” that, in specific situations, can be undermined or
deteriorated?
I began to take interest in these questions almost fifteen years ago
when, almost accidentally, I attended a session of the seminar of the
Bioethics Research Group of the University of Valencia. At the time, I
was still a PhD student and the subject of my dissertation (on Nietzsche
v
vi Preface

and Dostoevsky) had little to do with bioethics. Juan Carlos Siurana

Aparisi, the director of the research group, drew my attention to the fact
that Nietzsche’s stance on suicide was almost unexplored by bioethicists.
I began looking for Nietzsche’s remarks on suicide in his writings and
posthumous fragments. What struck me immediately was Nietzsche’s
joyous and almost poetical conception of free death. The possibility of
conceiving death differently, that is, as a festival was something new for me.
I left Spain in 2010. At the time, I had two main concerns: to find a
post-doc position and to work on the English translation of my disserta-
tion. I temporarily set aside my interest on the topic of suicide and
devoted myself completely to Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. It was an inter-
national conference on Kant and Nietzsche, held in 2012 in Lisbon, that
gave me the occasion to work again on the philosophy of suicide. From
that moment, suicide has been, somewhat intermittently, one of my main
topics of research. The idea of writing this book occurred to me some
years later, when I noticed that there was a fil rouge that linked Kant’s,
Schopenhauer’s, Nietzsche’s, and Wittgenstein’s views of suicide. I will
motivate my choice to place these four philosophical perspectives on sui-
cide side by side in the Introduction, so that there is no need to dwell on
it here.
Some chapters of this book are based on material previously published
in P. Stellino, “Nietzsche on Suicide”, Nietzsche-Studien, 42 (2013):
151–177, and in P. Stellino, “Kant and Nietzsche on Suicide”, Philosophical
Inquiry, 39/2 (2015): 79–104. Although in both cases I heavily reworked
their content for this book, I would like to thank both journals for per-
mission to revise and reuse these publications.
My research particularly benefited from the works of three specialists
on the philosophy of suicide: Margaret P. Battin, Héctor Wittwer, and
Michael Cholbi. Wittwer’s book Selbsttötung als philosophisches Problem:
Über die Rationalität und Moralität des Suizids particularly helped me at
the initial stage of my research to understand the complexities of the dif-
ferent arguments that are put forward in the debate concerning the ratio-
nality and morality of suicide.

LisbonPaolo Stellino
23 April 2020
 Acknowledgements

I owe a great debt to the following friends and colleagues who read single
chapters of this book and provided me with extremely valuable feedback:
Roberta Pasquarè and Lorena Cebolla Sanahuja (chapter on Kant),
Christopher Janaway and Vilmar Debona (chapter on Schopenhauer),
Marta Faustino and Maria Cristina Fornari (chapter on Nietzsche), and
Vicente Sanfélix Vidarte and Modesto Gómez Alonso (chapter on
Wittgenstein). I am also most grateful to the anonymous reviewer for
providing very useful critical and constructive comments on the entire
manuscript.
I would like to thank Brendan George and Lauriane Piette, from
Palgrave Macmillan, and Charanya Manoharan, from Springer, for their
help and support. I would also like to thank João Constâncio for kindly
supporting my work since the first day I arrived in Lisbon. I should also
mention that this book would not have been possible without the sup-
port of the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).
A part of this book was written during my stay in Montpellier. I would
like to thank Pascal Nouvel for welcoming me at the Centre d’Éthique
Contemporaine. A special thought goes to Nadia El Eter and Guillaume
Bagnolini, who shared with me the daily routine at the Centre.
A word of gratitude goes to all the friends who, inside and outside
academia, near and far, have accompanied me during this journey. I can-
not help mentioning Maria Cristina Fornari, Luca Lupo, and Pietro
vii
viii Acknowledgements

Gori. In particular, I shared with Pietro all the ups and downs of the
academic life as well as the experience of building a new life in a new
country with our respective families.
Finally, I am deeply thankful to my family for their constant support,
and to Audrey for her love and for sharing her life with me (despite the
fact that I am a philosopher). E lucevan le stelle…
 Contents

1 Introduction: Bringing Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,

and Wittgenstein Together  1
References  9

2 Immanuel Kant: The Moral Duty of Self-­Preservation 11

2.1 Contextualizing Kant’s Prohibition of Suicide  11
2.2 Arguments from the Lectures on Ethics  23
2.3 Arguments from the Published Writings  40
2.4 Concluding Remarks  64
References 66

3 Arthur Schopenhauer: The Metaphysical Futility of Suicide 71

3.1 Schopenhauer’s Critique of Religious and Philosophical
Arguments against Suicide  78
3.2 Schopenhauer’s Metaphysical Worldview  90
3.3 The Futility of Suicide 100
3.4 Concluding Remarks 117
References118

ix
x Contents

4 Friedrich Nietzsche: A Free Death at the Right Time123

4.1 Voluntary versus Involuntary Death 131
4.2 Free Death and Quick Death 143
4.3 Meaninglessness and Suicide 155
4.4 Concluding Remarks 173
References174

5 Ludwig Wittgenstein: Suicide as the Elementary Sin179

5.1 The Sources 189
5.2 Wittgenstein’s View of Ethics 199
5.3 Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Suicide 208
5.4 Concluding Remarks 221
References223

6 Conclusion: What Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and

Wittgenstein Can Teach Us About Suicide227
References240

Index243
 About the author

Paolo Stellino is Researcher at the Nova Institute of Philosophy, New

University of Lisbon, Portugal. His main fields of research interest are the
history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, ethics, and phi-
losophy of cinema. He has published many articles in international peer-­
reviewed journals and has authored several book chapters. He is the
author of the book Nietzsche and Dostoevsky: On the Verge of Nihilism (2015).

xi
 Abbreviations

Kant
References to Kant’s writings are cited according to the volume and page
number of the Academy Edition (Kants gesammelte Schriften).
A Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
CPR Critique of Pure Reason [1781 cited as A/1787 cited as B]
CPrR Critique of Practical Reason
LE Lectures on Ethics
G Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
MM The Metaphysics of Morals
NF Notes and Fragments
R Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Schopenhauer
References to Schopenhauer’s writings are cited according to the follow-
ing abbreviations and the page number of the editions listed in the
bibliography.

BM On the Basis of Morals

MR Manuscript Remains in Four Volumes
PP (I & II) Parerga and Paralipomena
WWR (I & II) The World as Will and Representation

xiii
xiv Abbreviations

Nietzsche
References to Nietzsche’s works are cited by abbreviation, chapter (when
applicable) and section number. For the sake of brevity, the chapter might
be identified only by a key word (for instance, Clever instead of Why I Am
so Clever). Nietzsche’s posthumous fragments are cited by year, group,
and fragment number according to the standard Colli and Montinari
edition. Nietzsche’s letters are quoted using the symbol # plus the stan-
dard reference number of the letter.

A The Anti-Christ
BGE Beyond Good and Evil
BT The Birth of Tragedy
EH Ecce Homo
GM On the Genealogy of Morality
GS The Gay Science
HH Human, All Too Human
HL On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life
L Letters
NW Nietzsche contra Wagner
PF Posthumous Fragments
SE Schopenhauer as Educator
TI Twilight of the Idols
WS The Wanderer and His Shadow
Z Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Wittgenstein
Quotes from the Tractatus are cited by reference to the number of the
section. Quotes from the Notebooks and the Geheime Tagebücher are cited
by reference to the day of the entry.

CV Culture and Value

GT Geheime Tagebücher. 1914–1916
LE Lecture on Ethics
NB Notebooks. 1914–1916
TLP Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
 1
Introduction: Bringing Kant,
Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
and Wittgenstein Together

In Ancient Greece death was seen as an exit door that led “from here to
yonder”, as Socrates puts in Plato’s Phaedo (117c/Plato 1997), that is,
from life on earth to the afterlife. One of the key philosophical questions
concerning death was whether man had the right to open the door. In an
earlier passage from the same dialogue, Socrates explains to Cebes that
“we men are in a kind of prison, and that one must not free oneself or run
away” (Phaedo, 62b)—at least, not “before a god has indicated some
necessity to do so” (Phaedo, 62c). Some centuries afterwards Epictetus,
the Stoic philosopher, expressed a different opinion. Life should be pre-
served as long as it is beneficial, but if it becomes unbearable, one can give
it up. As he writes in a well-known passage from the Discourses, “[h]as
some one made a smoke in the house? If he has made a moderate amount
of smoke I shall stay; if too much, I go outside. For one ought to remem-
ber and hold fast to this, that the door stands open” (Discourses I, XXV,
18/Epictetus 1956).
Since antiquity, the arguments put forward by philosophers have
become more solid and sophisticated. Nevertheless, the main question to
be answered remains the same: do we have a right to voluntarily put an
end to our life? This question can be essentially declined in two different,

© The Author(s) 2020 1

P. Stellino, Philosophical Perspectives on Suicide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53937-5_1
2 P. Stellino

but strictly related, questions: (1) is suicide morally permitted? and (2)
can suicide be considered (at least in certain situations) a rational act? An
analytic approach to this question is typical of recent, contemporary phi-
losophy of suicide, which is now treated as an independent branch of
philosophy. With few exceptions (like St. Thomas Aquinas and Hume),
past philosophers have considered the question of the morality and/or
rationality of suicide in a rather fragmentary way, so that their arguments
in favour or against suicide, often to be found in detached passages of
different works, must be pieced together in order to get a general view. As
will be shown, this is precisely the case with the four philosophers consid-
ered in this book.
Nowadays, there are several valuable studies that offer an overview of
the several philosophical (and religious) arguments that can be put for-
ward in support or against one’s right to commit suicide. The works of
Cosculluela (1995), Battin (1996), Wittwer (2003), and Cholbi (2011)
are good examples of this. The scope of these studies is often introduc-
tory. This means that, in presenting the several arguments pro and con
they gain in comprehensiveness, but inevitably lack in depth.1 The aim of
this book is to address some of the same questions that these studies
address. To this end, however, a different approach is followed. Attention
is focused on four modern perspectives, which can be considered as rep-
resenting or illustrating four different views of suicide. Putting forward
seven different arguments against suicide and defending a strict prohibi-
tion of this act, Kant is a representative of the anti-libertarian view.
Schopenhauer also essentially opposes suicide, but he does it as a conse-
quence of his metaphysical view of the world, which is thoroughly pes-
simistic. His stance exemplarily shows that a pessimistic worldview does
not necessarily go hand in hand with a pro-attitude towards suicide.
Contrary to Kant, Nietzsche is rather favourable to voluntary death, at
least in certain specific situations. His stance, reminiscent of the Stoics’,
can be thus considered as representative of the libertarian view. Finally,
Wittgenstein considers suicide from the standpoint of his mystical–reli-
gious worldview, conceiving it as the elementary sin. Addressing these

1
Due to its length, Wittwer’s study combines, to a certain extent, comprehensiveness and depth.
 1 Introduction: Bringing Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche… 3

different but, as will be shown, complementary positions, this book pro-

vides an unusual way of understanding the phenomenon of suicide in an
integrated way. The book of course does not pretend to have an exhaus-
tive character on the immense topic it touches upon, but what it lacks in
comprehensiveness it gains in depth.
The reason to consider Kant’s, Schopenhauer’s, Nietzsche’s, and
Wittgenstein’s views of suicide in the same book also derives from the fact
that, as mentioned in the Preface, there is a fil rouge that links these views
together. In the Appendix to the first volume of the World as Will and
Representation, Schopenhauer clearly acknowledges that “however differ-
ent the content of my line of reasoning is from that of Kant, it has clearly
been very heavily influenced by Kantian ideas, it necessarily presupposes
them, and takes them as its point of departure” (WWR I: 443/
Schopenhauer 2010). When it comes to morality and its grounding,
however, Schopenhauer’s view is “diametrically opposed to Kant’s in its
essential points” (BM: 122/Schopenhauer 2009). This can be clearly seen
in Schopenhauer’s negative evaluation of Kant’s view of suicide.
Schopenhauer is very critical of the way in which Kant approaches sui-
cide and several pages of his prize essay On the Basis of Morals are devoted
to criticizing some of the arguments put forward by the latter.
Nietzsche’s relation to Schopenhauer recalls, to a certain extent,
Schopenhauer’s relation to Kant. Nietzsche was deeply influenced by
Schopenhauer (“my great teacher”, he called him in the Preface to the
Genealogy of Morality; GM, Preface, 5/Nietzsche 2006) and this influence
is not limited to the former’s early philosophy, as is often believed. At the
same time, however, Nietzsche was a profound critic of Schopenhauer’s
life-denying philosophy. Thus Nietzsche partly elaborates his view of sui-
cide in opposition to his teacher’s, and, more in general, to pessimistic
attitudes to life. Indeed, due to the influence of Schopenhauer’s thought,
pessimistic philosophies were à la mode in the second half of the nine-
teenth century and Nietzsche knew them well. Furthermore, as men-
tioned, Nietzsche’s view is also antithetical to Kant’s—although this
antithesis is not the result of Nietzsche’s direct confrontation with Kant’s
arguments against suicide, but it rather depends on Nietzsche’s more gen-
eral critique of his moral theory.
If Schopenhauer criticizes Kant’s view of suicide, and if Nietzsche
opposes Schopenhauer’s (directly) and Kant’s (indirectly) approaches to
4 P. Stellino

suicide, Wittgenstein’s most important remarks on suicide date from the

early period, that is, at a time when his philosophy was strongly influ-
enced by Schopenhauer’s metaphysics (which takes Kant’s transcendental
idealism as starting point, as mentioned). Given that Schopenhauer
exerted a major influence on the early Wittgenstein’s understanding of
the world and of ethics, it is not surprising to see that this influence also
extends to the latter’s view of suicide. In passing, it should be also men-
tioned that although it is not possible to know whether Wittgenstein was
familiar with Nietzsche’s remarks on suicide, it is a fact that in 1914
Wittgenstein bought the eighth volume of Nietzsches Werke (GT 8.12.14/
Wittgenstein 1992), which contained several texts from 1888.
Wittgenstein was most interested in Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ. In his
Wittgenstein biography, Ray Monk comments on Wittgenstein’s interest
in Nietzsche as follows: “More stimulating was a writer whose view could
not have been more antithetical to the Tolstoyan Christianity that
Wittgenstein had come to embrace: Friedrich Nietzsche” (Monk 1991:
121). In reality, Wittgenstein’s interest in Nietzsche can be easily
explained. Indeed, although it is true that The Anti-Christ was a virulent
attack upon the Christian religion and that Wittgenstein was “deeply
affected” by Nietzsche’s hostility against Christianity (GT 8.12.14),
Nietzsche’s work was strongly influenced by Tolstoy’s view of Christianity
(Llinares Chover 2010). As will be shown, precisely this view contributed
to an important extent to shape Wittgenstein’s view of suicide.
As one can see, there is a clear connection between Kant’s,
Schopenhauer’s, Nietzsche’s, and Wittgenstein’s views of suicide. This
connection, however, does not constitute the only reason for this book.
Another reason is that, with the exception of Kant, the other three phi-
losophers considered here are often ignored in the field of philosophy of
suicide. This lack of attention seems to be motivated by reasons that are
different in each case. Schopenhauer’s opposition to suicide may be
regarded as unappealing since it presupposes his peculiar and, by now,
outdated metaphysics of the will. However, Schopenhauer is among the
philosophers who gave most importance to the topic of suicide (like
Hume, he dedicated a specific essay to suicide) and in his writings one
can find interesting considerations of various nature on this subject.
These considerations go far beyond his argument for the futility of
 1 Introduction: Bringing Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche… 5

suicide based on metaphysical grounds and Schopenhauer’s approach to

suicide is highly worthy of attention for the broadness of its scope and for
being ahead of his time, among other reasons. One of the aims of this
book is thus to revaluate Schopenhauer’s view of suicide and bring it to
the attention of contemporary scholars.
In the field of philosophy of suicide Nietzsche has received even less
attention than Schopenhauer. This may come as a surprise if one consid-
ers that his published writings contain several remarks on suicide and
that a speech from the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is significantly
entitled On Free Death. This lack of attention can be differently accounted
for. One reason might be the fragmentary and unsystematic character of
Nietzsche’s approach to suicide. Another reason might be the strong rhe-
torical component of the texts in which he presents his view. As will be
shown, however, although Nietzsche tends to appeal to emotions instead
of defending his position with proper arguments, he nonetheless gives his
readers reasons that support his argumentation, and these reasons can be
scrutinized and examined just in the same way as Kant’s, Schopenhauer’s,
and Wittgenstein’s arguments can be. A third reason that might explain
why Nietzsche’s view of suicide is often ignored in secondary literature on
philosophy of suicide is the fact that, along with the notion of free death,
he also defends a quick death for all those who cling to life out of cow-
ardice and fear, and refuse to take a timely leave from it. Without denying
that considered from a contemporary perspective this latter notion
appears unsettling, one should resist here the temptation of decontextual-
izing Nietzsche’s words and reading them through the distorting prism of
our historical perspective. In any case, the notions of free and quick death
can and should be kept separated, so as to judge Nietzsche’s arguments in
favour of voluntary death without any bias.
Of the four philosophers considered in this study, Wittgenstein is the
one who has received less attention in the field of philosophy of suicide.
To my knowledge, the only in-depth study on Wittgenstein’s view of
suicide is the very recent paper by Gómez Alonso (2018) which, however,
mainly (although not uniquely) focuses the attention on the relation
between Wittgenstein’s early view of suicide and Schopenhauer’s meta-
physics of the will. This lack of attention may be explained by the fact
that Wittgenstein’s remarks on suicide are very few in number and that in
6 P. Stellino

order to grasp their meaning it is necessary to understand some of the

very complex and difficult notions that he introduces in his Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus. Once this difficult step is overcome, however,
Wittgenstein’s view of suicide appears very insightful and directly linked
to some of the most profound thinkers of the nineteenth century such as
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and James, among others.
Unlike Schopenhauer’s, Nietzsche’s, and Wittgenstein’s views of sui-
cide, Kant’s view has been the subject of countless studies—as the
extended bibliography of the second chapter of this book clearly shows.
This should not be surprising, given that Kant’s moral theory has exerted
and continues to exert such an extraordinary influence on contemporary
bioethics and applied ethics. Even in this case, however, some clarifica-
tions are needed. First, although there are several informative studies on
Kant’s view of suicide, to my knowledge, there is no comprehensive study
in English on this subject. The only paper that presents an overview of
Kant’s several arguments against suicide is Wittwer’s (2001). However,
this paper is almost twenty years old (although the analysis developed in
it is still compelling) and is written in German, being therefore not easily
accessible to the anglophone audience. Second, existing literature usually
tends to focus the attention on Kant’s arguments from the published
writings, ignoring the arguments put forward in the Lectures on Ethics.
Almost no attention has been paid, for instance, to Kant’s freedom argu-
ment in the Collins lectures (see Sect. 2.2.3), according to which suicide
would imply a self-contradiction of freedom. This is very surprising, con-
sidering that a similar line of argumentation is sometimes advanced
within the context of the contemporary debate on assisted suicide. The
aim of the first chapter of this book is thus to provide a comprehensive
study of Kant’s view of suicide and an in-depth examination of all his
arguments against suicide. Third and finally, recent literature in English
on this subject tends to question the conventional reading of Kant as a
philosopher who categorically prohibits suicide. Some scholars even
argue that, in certain situations, Kant’s moral philosophy can be read as
justifying not only a right, but even a duty to suicide. As I will show in
the following chapter, these readings are often based on misunderstand-
ings deriving either from incomplete information or from a lack of philo-
logical accuracy.
 1 Introduction: Bringing Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche… 7

The methodology followed in this study primarily consists in a close

and attentive reading of the primary sources (published writings, Nachlass,
lectures, diaries, and letters). When necessary, attention is given to the
German original. The main aim is to provide a complete overview of
Kant’s, Schopenhauer’s, Nietzsche’s, and Wittgenstein’s views of suicide.
As far as possible, each stance is presented as a unitary whole. On the
other hand, however, chronological differences are taken into account.
Kant’s arguments from the Collins lectures (pre-critical period), for
instance, are distinguished from the arguments that can be found in the
published writings. At the same time, correspondences between the for-
mer and the latter are nevertheless emphasized. With the help of the rel-
evant bibliography on the subject, the arguments in favour of or against
suicide put forward by the four philosophers considered in this study are
explained, contextualized (when necessary), examined, and critically
assessed. The approach of this book is thus not so much historical as
philosophical in nature.
This book is constituted of four main chapters and a conclusion. To
each philosopher’s view of suicide is devoted one, single chapter. The fol-
lowing is a brief overview of the content of each chapter. Chapter 2 pro-
vides an in-depth examination of Kant’s arguments against suicide. After
a contextualization of Kant’s prohibition of suicide (§2.1), following
Wittwer (2001), I identify seven different arguments against the moral
permissibility of suicide: three from the Lectures on Ethics (§2.2) and four
from the published writings (§2.3). For each of them, I present the argu-
ment (and possible variations), point out strengths and flaws, and discuss
possible objections and counter-objections, taking into consideration the
abundant bibliography on the subject. I conclude that, against a recent
trend in secondary literature, which tends to read Kant as justifying not
only a right, but even a duty to suicide, Kant does not allow for any
exception to his strict prohibition of suicide.
Chapter 3 provides a full and complete analysis of Schopenhauer’s
view of suicide. Drawing on the limited secondary literature on this sub-
ject (essentially, Fox (1980), Birnbacher (1985), Jacquette (1999, 2000),
and Janaway (2017)), I first focus on Schopenhauer’s dismissal of previ-
ous religious and philosophical arguments against this act, giving particu-
lar attention to his critique of Kant’s arguments (§3.1). Subsequently, I
8 P. Stellino

briefly review the main points of his metaphysical worldview. Particular

attention is given to Schopenhauer’s gloomy understanding of human
condition and to his conception of death (§3.2). Having sketched the
main features of what is commonly known as Schopenhauer’s pessimism,
I finally examine Schopenhauer’s own argument for the futility of suicide
as well as his position on asceticism and on voluntary death by starva-
tion (§3.3).
In Chap. 4 I turn my attention to Nietzsche. Given his unsystematic
approach to suicide, I piece together his remarks and observations on the
subject in order to get a unitary picture. What is characteristic of
Nietzsche’s view of suicide is that he approaches this topic from two dif-
ferent, but interrelated points of view. On the one hand, he considers the
question of whether, in certain specific situations, voluntary death can be
a fully rational and natural choice. Within this context, he defends the
idea of a free death at the right time. On the other hand, Nietzsche con-
siders suicide from what might be defined as a proto-existentialist stand-
point: the problem is to judge whether life is or is not worth living in a
world devoid of meaning and purpose. Given the difference between the
two approaches, I consider them separately. Thus, after a brief introduc-
tion in which I contextualize Nietzsche’s view of suicide, I first consider
his arguments in favour of the rationality of voluntary death (§4.1).
Subsequently, I turn my attention to the notion of “free death”, focusing
particularly on some puzzling aspects that we are faced with when con-
sidering Nietzsche’s view of suicide. I also contrast Nietzsche’s free death
with his polemic notion of “quick death” (§4.2). Finally, I consider how
Nietzsche deals with the aforementioned question of whether life is worth
living in a world devoid of meaning and purpose. Following a chrono-
logical order (early, middle, and late Nietzsche) and giving special atten-
tion to previous literature (essentially Young 2003 and Loeb 2008), I
conclude that Nietzsche’s answer to this question is affirmative (§4.3).
Chapter 5 is devoted to Wittgenstein’s view of suicide. Attention is
focused on the early period. This choice is motivated by two main rea-
sons: first, Wittgenstein’s most interesting remarks on suicide date from
this period, and second, suicide was an intensely personal matter and a
relatively recurrent thought for the young Wittgenstein. After an intro-
duction in which I show how Wittgenstein’s early life was affected by
 1 Introduction: Bringing Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche… 9

several suicides and how he himself often thought of this possibility, I

first consider some of the important sources that influenced and shaped
his view of suicide (§5.1). Subsequently, in order to contextualize his
otherwise obscure remarks on suicide, I offer an overview of Wittgenstein’s
peculiar worldview, as it is presented in the Tractatus, as well as of his
understanding of ethics (§5.2). Finally, in the third and last section, I
turn the attention to Wittgenstein’s remarks on suicide, explaining their
meaning and elucidating Wittgenstein’s peculiar view of suicide (§5.3).
In Chap. 6, I present the most important conclusions that can be
drawn when Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein are put
into dialogue with each other. What do these philosophers have to say
about suicide? What can we still learn from them? Here I address these
questions, pointing out limits and merits of the four approaches consid-
ered in this book.

References
Battin, M. P. (1996). The Death Debate. Ethical Issues in Suicide. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Birnbacher, D. (1985). “Schopenhauer und das ethische Problem des
Selbstmords”, Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch, 66: 115–129.
Cholbi, M. J. (2011). Suicide. The Philosophical Dimension. Peterborough, ON:
Broadview Press.
Cosculluela, V. (1995). The Ethics of Suicide. New York/London: Garland
Publishing.
Epictetus. (1956). The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and
Fragments (Vol. 1). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London:
Heinemann (Loeb Classical Library).
Fox, M. (1980). “Schopenhauer on Death, Suicide and Self-Renunciation”, in:
id. (ed.), Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement. Brighton:
Harvester Press.
Gómez Alonso, M. (2018). “Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer and the Metaphysics
of Suicide”, Revista de Filosofia Aurora, 30 (49): 299–321.
Jacquette, D. (1999). “Schopenhauer on Death”, in: C. Janaway (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 293–317.
10 P. Stellino

Jacquette, D. (2000). “Schopenhauer on the Ethics of Suicide”, Continental

Philosophy Review, 33: 43–58.
Janaway, C. (2017). “Schopenhauer’s Consoling View of Death”, IFCoLog
Journal of Logics and their Applications, 4 (11): 3705–3718.
Llinares Chover, J. B. (2010). “The Early Wittgenstein, Tolstoy’s Kurze Darlegung
des Evangelium and Nietzsche’s Der Antichrist”, in: L. Perissinotto, V. Sanfélix
(eds.), Doubt, Ethics and Religion. Wittgenstein and the Counter-Enlightenment.
Frankfurt a. M.: Ontos Verlag, 105–128.
Loeb, P. S. (2008). “Suicide, Meaning, and Redemption”, in: M. Dries (ed.),
Nietzsche on Time and History. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 163–190.
Monk, R. (1991). Ludwig Wittgenstein. The Duty of Genius. London:
Vintage Books.
Nietzsche, F. (2006). On the Genealogy of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Plato. (1997). Complete Works. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett
Publishing Company.
Schopenhauer, A. (2009). The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Schopenhauer, A. (2010). The World as Will and Representation (Vol. I).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1992). Geheime Tagebücher. 1914–1916. Vienna: Turia & Kant.
Wittwer, H. (2001). “Über Kants Verbot der Selbsttötung”, Kant-Studien,
92: 180–209.
Wittwer, H. (2003). Selbsttötung als philosophisches Problem. Paderborn: Mentis.
Young, J. (2003). The Death of God and the Meaning of Life. London/New York:
Routledge.
 2
Immanuel Kant: The Moral Duty
of Self-­Preservation

2.1  ontextualizing Kant’s Prohibition

C
of Suicide
According to Margaret P. Battin, underlying the 2000-year-old theoretical
debate about how we die and which should be the individual’s role in his or
her death is the Stoic/Christian divide: “whether one’s role should be as far
as possible active, self-assertive, and responsible and may include ending
one’s own life—or, on the other hand, acceptant, obedient, and passive in
the sense of being patient, where ‘allowing to die’ is the most active step that
should be taken” (Battin 2005: 6). Despite his willingness to recognize that
there seems to be something moral in the Stoic attitude to suicide and that
sometimes suicide is a mark of great heroism, Kant follows the Christian
tradition in his consideration of self-preservation as “the first, though not the
principal, duty of man to himself” (MM, 6/Kant 1991: 421).
In recent times, several studies have questioned the conventional read-
ing of Kant as a philosopher who categorically prohibits suicide.1 This has

1
See Cosculluela (1995: 39), James (1999), Cholbi (2000, 2010, 2015), Brassington (2006),
Cooley (2006, 2007a, 2013, 2015), Rhodes (2007), and Harter (2011). See also Gregor (1963:

© The Author(s) 2020 11

P. Stellino, Philosophical Perspectives on Suicide,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53937-5_2
12 P. Stellino

led Michael Cholbi (2015: 607) to claim that, “thanks to recent scholar-
ship, Kant is no longer seen as the dogmatic opponent of suicide that he
appears to be at first glance.” Scholars have argued that, in certain situa-
tions, Kant’s moral philosophy can be read as justifying not only a right
but even a duty to suicide. Dennis R. Cooley (2007a, 2007b, and 2015),
for instance, defends a Kantian moral duty for the soon-to-be demented
to commit suicide. Other scholars focus attention on the casuistical ques-
tions presented in the Metaphysics of Morals (MM, 6: 423f.), arguing that
some of them seem to permit suicide.2
One may wonder why, if Kant thought that in some occasions suicide
could be permitted or even be considered as obligatory, he is reported to
have said that suicide is not permitted “under any condition” (LE, Collins
27/1997: 372) and “under any circumstances” (LE, Vigilantius 27: 603).
That Kant was unsympathetic to suicide is also shown by his cold and
almost indifferent reply to Maria von Herbert, an Austrian woman and a
student of his philosophy who, on the verge of suicide, wrote to him ask-
ing for his help and advice. Von Herbert was desperate because of a
heartbreak and sought comfort in Kant’s philosophy but could not find
it. As a result, in August 1791 she wrote to Kant asking for help, for com-
fort or for counsel to prepare her for death. Kant answered in spring 1792
but was unable to relieve the young woman’s grief. Von Herbert wrote
again in January 1793 but Kant never replied. Eventually, the woman
took her life in 1803.3
To this, one must add that Kant’s views of suicide are very derogatory.
In the Lectures on Ethics, suicide is described as “the most abominable of
the crimes that inspire horror and hatred [das abscheulichste Laster des
Grausens und des Haßens]” (LE, Collins 27: 347) and as “the most dread-
ful thing [das schrecklichste] that a man can do to himself ” (LE, Collins
27: 391). By committing it, the human being “puts himself below the

135–136) and Battin (1996: 108–112). On the other hand, for a reading of Kant as opposing
suicide in all circumstances, see de Vleeschauwer (1966), Brandt (1975), Wittwer (2001), Unna
(2003), and Schüssler (2012). Hill (1991: 85) ascribes to Kant a “rigoristic opposition to suicide.”
He nonetheless finds Kant’s position untenable and claims that “the spirit of his idea of humanity
as an end in itself […] leads to a more tenable position.”
2
See, particularly, James (1999).
3
On this, see Langton (1992).
 2 Immanuel Kant: The Moral Duty of Self-Preservation 13

beast” (LE, Collins 27: 372) and “makes himself into a monster” (A, 7:
259). How can these categorical and harsh claims be reconciled with the
reading according to which “Kant does implicitly and explicitly allow
exceptions to the general rule” (Cooley 2007a: 38)?
In reality, some of the interpretations that defend the view according
to which Kant would have allowed exceptions to his categorical prohibi-
tion of suicide are based on misunderstandings deriving either from
incomplete information or from a lack of philological accuracy. Kant’s
consideration of Cato’s suicide is, in this sense, paradigmatic.4 In the
Lectures on Ethics, Kant introduces Cato’s suicide by claiming that “sui-
cide can also come to have a plausible aspect [scheinbare Seite], whenever,
that is, the continuance of life rests upon such circumstances as may
deprive that life of its value; when a man can no longer live in accordance
with virtue and prudence, and must therefore put an end to his life from
honourable motives” (LE, Collins 27: 370). Cato had only two options
available to him: either to fall into Caesar’s hands—something which he
considered dishonourable—or to take his life and preserve his honour. As
Kant puts it, “he viewed his death as a necessity; his thought was: Since
you can no longer live as Cato, you cannot go on living at all” (LE,
Collins 27: 370f.).
According to Kant, Cato’s suicide constitutes “the one example [das
einzige Beyspiel] that has given the world an opportunity of defending
suicide” (LE, Collins 27: 371). Scholars often refer to this passage to
show that Kant’s attitude towards suicide is not as dogmatic as it prima
facie appears to be.5 Surprisingly, the same scholars have failed to remark
that later in the same lecture Kant again discusses Cato’s suicide. If on the
one hand Kant claims that Cato’s suicide was a mark of heroism and
courage, he also adds, on the other, that “if Cato, under all the tortures
that Caesar might have inflicted on him, had still adhered to his resolve
with steadfast mind, that would have been noble; but not when he laid
hands upon himself. Those who defend and teach the legitimacy of

4
Cato the Younger or “Uticensis” (95–46 BC) was a Roman statesman and Stoic, known for his
moral integrity. He was one of the defeated of the Great Roman Civil War (49–45 BC). Unwilling
to live in a world governed by Caesar, whom he considered a tyrant, Cato decided to commit sui-
cide, thus becoming a symbol of virtue.
5
See Battin (2006: 107), Cooley (2006: 333, 336; 2007a: 38; 2013: 367), and Harter (2011).
14 P. Stellino

suicide inevitably do great harm in a republic”6 (LE, Collins 27: 374). As

Yvonne Unna (2003: 464) points out, “Kant’s reasoning suggests that it
is one thing to sympathize with a person’s wish to die an honorable death,
yet another to justify the act of suicide. A violation of honor does not
justify ‘self-murder’.”
Another source of misunderstanding stems from the five casuistical
questions that follow the section dedicated to suicide in the Metaphysics
of Morals7 (MM, 6: 423f.). Given the fact that Kant poses the questions
but does not provide an answer (at least, not in the Metaphysics of Morals),
scholars have often taken the casuistical questions either to be open and
unanswered, or even to permit suicide in some cases. So, for instance,
both Battin (1996: 110) and James (1999: 49, 52) claim that Kant seems
to consider Curtius’ suicide as morally justifiable. Yet, Vigilantius reports
Kant as saying that “it can never be allowable for me deliberately to yield
up my life, or to kill myself in fulfilment of a duty to others; for example,
when Curtius plunges into the chasm, in order to preserve the Roman
people, he is acting contrary to duty” (LE, Vigilantius 27: 629).
In 2003, Yvonne Unna published a very detailed and compelling study
of Kant’s casuistical questions in the Kant-Studien. Unna’s purpose was to
put to rest any possible speculation about how Kant would have answered
these questions by showing that Kant had actually answered or suggested
an answer to four of the five casuistical questions of the Metaphysics of
Morals elsewhere—more precisely, in the Anthropology, in the Vigilantius
lectures, and in the Nachlaß. Unna’s conclusion was that “all of Kant’s
replies confirm that he categorically rejects suicide as immoral”8 (Unna
2003: 454). It is unfortunate to observe that Unna’s paper has been often
ignored by later studies on Kant’s view of suicide. For instance, Cooley
claimed on various occasions that Kant seems to consider the suicide of

6
On this, see Seidler (1983 : 446).
7
The first three questions refer to the following historical figures: Curtius (hurling oneself to certain
death to save one’s country), Seneca (killing oneself to preserve one’s honour), and Frederick the
Great (carrying lethal poison in war to be able to commit suicide rather than be captured and
forced to agree to conditions that would prove harmful to the state). The fourth question is about
a man bitten by a mad dog, who prefers to take his life rather than cause harm to others. The fifth
and final question concerns the moral permissibility of smallpox inoculation, which at that time
could cause death.
8
See also Schüssler (2012: 77–81).
 2 Immanuel Kant: The Moral Duty of Self-Preservation 15

the man bitten by the rabid dog (MM, 6: 423f.) not only morally permis-
sible but also morally obligatory.9 This cannot be the case, for as Unna
(2003: 461f.) rightly points out, Kant dismisses this possibility in a pas-
sage from the Lectures on Ethics.10 It is, therefore, not true that “Kant the
casuist was more conciliatory than Kant the doctrinarian”11 (De
Vleeschauwer 1966: 254) nor that “many ‘casuistical questions’ remain”12
(Cholbi 2000: 172).
As this brief analysis shows, there has been some misunderstanding on
Kant’s attitude towards suicide in past years due to partial reading of
Kant’s writings, lectures, and Nachlaß, incomplete information on exist-
ing bibliography, and lack of philological accuracy in reading the texts,
among other factors. Needless to say, this does not mean that all studies
that aim to refute Kant’s alleged rigorism are based on false premises or
lack philological accuracy. On the contrary, there exist plausible interpre-
tations that point to concrete difficulties in Kant’s view of suicide. One of
these difficulties particularly concerns the fact that some of the examples
chosen by Kant to strengthen his argumentation are in reality ad hoc
examples. Another problem concerning Kant’s stance on suicide is linked
to the intricate relation between suicide and concepts such as dignity and

9
See Cooley (2006: 333; 2007a: 38–39; 2013: 367; 2015: 284). In his reply to Cooley’s paper
(2007a) on a Kantian moral duty for the soon-to-be demented to commit suicide, Stephen
R. Latham (2007: 50) draws the attention to Unna’s paper. Apparently, this reference has gone
unobserved by Cooley.
10
See LE, Vigilantius 27: 603: “To destroy oneself, therefore, through an act voluntarily under-
taken by the sensory being, can never be permitted, so that a suicide (autocheiria) can never, under
any circumstances, be regarded as allowable. Suppose, if you will, such cases as that of a slave, for
example, who should lose his life in consequence of an attempted but abortive bid for freedom; or
that one bitten by a mad dog should feel quite plainly the effects of madness; can either of them
take his own life? The first considers a life of slavery to be no such life as is suited to humanity; the
second foresees his own death, and the possibility, likewise, of harming others through his urge to
bite. Nevertheless, they both frustrate all attempts whereby they might be freed from their unhappy
condition and are preserved from harm, e.g., by having themselves tied up at the appropriate time;
quite recently a remedy for the mad dog’s bite has been found, in administering oil to the victim
internally, and trying to anoint him completely on the outside.”
11
As a general rule, I have personally translated all citations in languages other than English.
12
I acknowledge my mistake in Stellino (2015: 98, n. 48; due to an unfortunate misunderstanding
with the publisher, this article was not published in its final and revised version). According to
Schmidt and Schönecker (2017: 164–165), “The crucial point of [Kant’s] casuistry is not the ques-
tion whether there are exceptions to the rule, that is, whether suicide ‘in specific cases’ can be per-
mitted, but rather whether concrete cases of self-disembodiment [Selbstentleibung] entail self-murder
[Selbstmord].”
16 P. Stellino

autonomy—concepts that play a pivotal role in Kant’s philosophy as well

as in contemporary bioethics. I will address these issues later in this chap-
ter. For now, I will present Kant’s arguments for the immorality of suicide
and consider some of the critiques that have been addressed or can be
addressed to them.
Before I proceed with the analysis of Kant’s arguments, however, I
must draw attention to a fundamental distinction between Kant’s ethics
and Kantian ethics. Following Allen W. Wood (2008: 1), we can say that
Kant’s ethics is “the theory Kant himself put forward,” whereas Kantian
ethics is “an ethical theory formulated in the basic spirit of Kant.” When
considering Kant’s attitude towards suicide, it is essential to distinguish
between what Kant actually said and what one could say without betray-
ing the spirit of his philosophy. There is a non-negligible difference
between claiming that in certain occasions Kant seems to justify a right
or a duty to suicide, and claiming that on certain occasions a Kantian
right or duty to suicide seems to be justifiable. Thomas E. Hill (1991:
85), for instance, ascribes to Kant a “rigoristic opposition to suicide.” He
nonetheless finds Kant’s position untenable and defends a modified
Kantian view according to which “some suicides are justified and even
commendable” (id.: 95). In what follows, I will only focus attention on
Kant’s attitude to suicide, leaving aside the rather different question of
whether a Kantian right or duty to suicide might be, on certain occa-
sions, justifiable.
With this distinction in mind, we can now consider Kant’s several
arguments for the impermissibility of suicide. As Seidler (1983: 440)
points out, the topic of suicide “is virtually absent in Kant’s pre-critical
works, but it began to occupy him seriously in the mid-1770s and
received explicit treatment in all major ethical writings thereafter.” The
relevant passages, though not the only ones, can be found in the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason,
the Metaphysics of Morals, the lectures recorded by Collins and Vigilantius,
and the Nachlaß.13 The German word that Kant uses to refer to the act of

13
See G, 4: 421–422, 429; CPrR, 5: 44; MM, 6: 422–424; LE, 27: 190–192, 208–210, 342–347,
369–378, 601–603, 627–630; NF 6801, 19: 165–166. See also § 77 of the Anthropology from a
Pragmatic Point of View (7: 258–259).
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