Epicurean approach to suicide and euthanasia
I asked Epicurean experts about their views on suicide and euthanasia but they are either discussing more important issues for them (like “ways to dispense with singularities and other oddities of General Relativity” on the Epicurean Philosophy List) or just keep silent (on Facebook’s Epicurus discussions site).
My Epicurean friend, Victor Kioulaphides, on the other hand, took about 27 minutes to state his relevant opinion in his usual (brilliant and elegant) way on the Epicurean Group of Yahoo. He allowed me to reproduce it in my blog and share it with those who might be interested in this topic. So here it is:
Much of the historical polemic regarding suicide in Hellenistic philosophy is basically a tug-of-war between Stoics and Epicureans. The former advocated suicide rather readily: since life, in their view, wasn’t worth all that much after all, giving it up was also no great loss or sacrifice. In plain terms, either having it or losing it was no big deal.
Epicurus, however, advocated a view that is both more palatable and more humane. He believed that “He is entirely small-minded, who finds many reasons for suicide” (if secondary sources are to be trusted). So one could construct such hypothetical scenarios as these:
I. If, while at work one day, you watch your investment portfolio head south on the computer screen, then promptly rush home and shoot yourself to death, you are small-minded in Epicurean terms, because you obviously valued the money that you lost more than, say, the friends that you still have– or else, if they left you along with your wealth, they wouldn’t have been truefriends, anyway. In this case, suicide is based on a fatal misjudgment of the desires, natural, necessary, etc. You attached excessive value to things that did not deserve it, while depreciating those that truly do.
II. If, as in your own scenario, you are in the terminal stage of some grave illness, and further treatment –while futile– would also be more invasive, more painful, and more uncomfortable than simply letting yourself go, you may argue more strongly that a passive, palliative approach is more “pleasant”, or at least less UNpleasant– in Epicurean terms, these two are of course synonymous. In this case, you would have measured rationally the pleasure and/or pain involved and, in truly Epicurean fashion, reached the conclusion that’s right for you. The less the pain, the better.
In “neo-Epicurean” terms, we also have the further refinement (or complication, perhaps) of palliative care in terminal cases (as the laws provide for in the US, or the UK), or medically assisted suicide (as the laws provide for in Switzerland, or the Netherlands). The Social Libertarian in me casts his vote for the latter legal/medical framework, but that of course becomes largely a political discussion, not a philosophical one. In practical terms, DNR (“Do Not Resuscitate”) sign-offs are common in the US, and an integral part of any treatment of cases that might prove terminal.
In philosophical, specifically Epicurean terms, I am fairly certain that letting go, when pain and displeasure in hanging on would have far exceeded any of the pleasures of life, is quite appropriate.
I hope I have answered your question in as strict an Epicurean context as I could, while also flavoring my reply inevitably with my own, personal views on the matter.
Above all, of course, it is always essential to bear in mind that Epicureanism is a philosophy of life, NOT of death. The morbid fascination of the ancients (and, alas, many moderns, too) with “dying well” is foreign to the sunny, optimistic, nonchalant world-view of Epicureanism. Suicide is a very minor point, IMHO, in the overall philosophical framework of Epicureanism. Epicurus missed no opportunity to tease and mock those who, as a matter of philosophical predisposition, ranted and raved about how oh-so-awful life was. His reply, in disarming frankness, was basically “Love it or leave it”. If it’s such a huge burden to you, he implied, then keep your mouth shut and go jump off a cliff. Talking about the alleged misery of life incessantly, while clinging on to life all the same, is simply hypocritical. He clearly had no patience with the death-loving Romantic…
Testimonials for Epicurus Translated
I wonder who can quote the original versions of some of the testimonials for Epicurus I translated with my wife into our irreverent language. (The addresses my help to solve the riddle:)
Our translation:
“You’re not the only Epi wanna-be. What the guy writes in his blog is dead on about people’s right to be happy without the feds getting in their faces. Even the oldest of the old smart guys in Athens and Rome would agree, if you look at the lesson plans they used to come up with. Give my love to the family.” 2084-2167 After Epicurus Pathway, Edge Hill, VA, USA
And who can quote the original text and give the author’s name?
Epicurean self-medication
As the stressFREEDOMguide it is my job to prescribe and administer the Epicurean ‘fourfold remedy’ (tetrapharmakos): ”God presents no fears, death no worries. And while good is readily attainable, bad is readily endurable.”
As a child I was always scared to death when the doctor was preparing to give me a shot because I anticipated the pain it would cause. I remember once the family physician saw my tears and asked me ironically whether the shot he was only preparing already hurt. I said: “No, it doesn’t hurt YET, but it’s surely going to…”
Stoics prepare for the adversities by imagining every morning all the possible and probable inconveniences they might encounter so in case something unpleasant really does happen they would be prepared.
The Epicureans do not deem it necessary to spoil half of the forenoon by just imagining all kinds of unpleasant experiences. They just tell themselves something like: “Yes, the sh*t does hit the fan every now and again but I will deal with it when it will actually happen and won’t spoil my day by imagining now how I would deal with it when and if it happened.”
I know now what Epicurus and his followers knew before me: that our “bad experiences” are never sooooooo bad as we imagine them in anticipation.
Therefore I stopped the habit of anticipating pains.
(But of course there is nothing wrong in anticipating future pleasures, like for instance a great sleep under sedation:)
death consciousness increases pleasure
Being conscious of the fact that you will certainly die and that you may die any moment can sharpen your senses for present perceptions and this process can be very pleasurable.
Barely escaping death is mentioned by Epicurus as an extreme and I can confirm his observation. One motorbike and two car accidents left me with intensive feelings of katasematic (i.e. “static”, as opposed to ‘kinetic’, i.e. “in movement”) pleasure produced by a heightened activity of the senses: time in slow motion, the olfactive (smells), auditive (sounds) and visual (shape, color, texture) perception details extremely sharp.
But you need not endanger your life to sharpen your senses, it can be done by a simple act of will. Artists do this systematically. They not only live intensively in the present but are able to create something that enables you to live in the present, too. Descriptions of details can literally drag you into their world which you may “perceive” as intensively as if you were there, almost as if you were THEM. Reading Proust’s description of a cake called madeleine stimulates all your senses and a piece by Mozart can melt you down to dancing sound waves. 17 syllables of a good haiku can storm your senses to re-create an intensive experience.
Walking alone, with a dog or a child can produce the same effects described by Vonnegut in these terms:
[…]when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, ”If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ”If this isn’t isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
With some determination you can train yourself to get these katastematic pleasures out of almost any experience, including some which, at first sight, would not invite the association of pleasurability.
You can imagine for instance that today is your last day. A Stoic would probably concentrate on getting his last will formulated as preceisely as possible while a Kyrenaic hedonist might want to eat, drink, dance and make love all day.
An Epicurean might go on with his “normal” life with the difference that he would touch the surface of the plaster on his suture more gently, inhale the coffee aroma deeper, watch a leaf struggle with the wind for a while and then accept the laws of gravitation and slowly descend to the frosty ground, write his last will and also something like Epicurus wrote on his deathbed:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/epicurus05.htm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
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Who can be called and Epicurean today?
What principles, attitudes, behavior patterns, lifestyle would describe an “Epicurean” 2,300 years after Epicurus?
Can we put together a sort of catalog that describes what and “Epicurean” is in our days?
Do you know a living person whom you would describe as “Epicurean”? Why?
These are the questions I asked on Epicurus’s discussion board today:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=14509&uid=79493658728
Ethics of autonomy, community and divinity and the feeling of elevation
The ethics of autonomy, community and divinity as per Shweder and Haidt are explained here:
http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Moral_Psychology
Haidt’s studies on the feeling of elevation or divinity can be accessed here:
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