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Suicide: Bad Act or Good Intervention
Author(s) -
Clements Collen D.,
Sider Roger C.,
Perlmutter Richard
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1943-278x.1983.tb00003.x
Subject(s) - situational ethics , intervention (counseling) , suicide prevention , poison control , feeling , value (mathematics) , perspective (graphical) , psychology , assisted suicide , value of life , social psychology , human factors and ergonomics , statement (logic) , medicine , psychiatry , medical emergency , law , political science , artificial intelligence , computer science , economics , machine learning , microeconomics
This article develops a different perspective on the ethics of suicide, based on theoretical and clinical grounds. In terms of value theory, applying “good” or “bad” to the suicide act makes no sense. We need to shift our focus from a search for an ethical statement about suicide (e.g., “rational suicide”) to the ethical justification for intervention based on the needs and interests of an affirming therapeutic profession. We choose to intervene because of values we hold about well‐functioning, existence, potential for human life; and because as empathic, social beings, we feel for others and are motivated by that feeling. This justification leads us to suggest a situational case‐centered ethics for suicide intervention.