Exclusive Sedanet Interview with Hossein Dabbagh, Part One (Suicide)

A great many of us human beings—and perhaps even you and I here present—have, in the struggle of time and life, so tumbled into the stony ground of hardship, misfortune, despair, and disillusionment, and have fallen so low, that we have seen the only way of release in “suicide and ridding ourselves of existence,” and nothing more!... Although, often, in the realm of actuality, in Khayyam’s words, “we have withdrawn the hand of action from our reach,” and have not, of course, submitted to what we have thought. And certainly, many others have realized this notion and departed from life and the world. Hence, weighty and numerous questions and challenges surrounding the issue of suicide remain as strong as ever. Among these, we sat down with Dr. Hossein Dabbagh to discuss and expound upon “the issue of whether this matter and act is justified and moral or not.” He completed his doctorate in Moral Philosophy (Moral Psychology and Neuroscience) at the Universities of Oxford and Reading. The conversation with him proceeded so amicably and earnestly that the discussion extended to the concepts of “the meaning of life, the experience of suffering, the affliction of boredom, and the matter of marriage and childbearing.” Now, however, Sedanet is publishing the first part of it (namely, the issue of suicide and euthanasia), and will gradually publish and present the remaining discussions in subsequent issues.

Hossein Dabbagh* Institute for Cognitive Science Studies

 “Hope” for Suicide

Question: With greetings and respect to your presence, “Dear Mr. Dabbagh,” I begin the first question with an allusion to the book The Myth of Sisyphus by the great Albert Camus. He begins that influential book by posing the same famously bone-crushing problem: ((There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is “suicide.”)). What, in truth, is your response and confrontation, as a researcher in moral philosophy? Is suicide fundamentally a justified act? Why?

Answer: I am more or less in agreement and of the same mind as Albert Camus, and I believe that suicide is one of the serious and important problems of philosophy. If we cannot provide a convincing answer to this philosophical problem, perhaps some of our other endeavors may be cast into doubt. In the midst of that same book, The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus has another expression, which is that the problem of the meaning of life is one of the most urgent and pressing issues of our daily lives. I think this is a very precise point. Who does not know what a close relationship exists between the problem of the meaning of life and suicide? In the common conception of those who think about suicide and imagine that attempting suicide is one of the available solutions for ending the suffering of life, it is thought that this life is a meaningless life and perhaps not worth living.

Allow me to begin with the problem of suicide and, as the discussion warrants, I will also address the meaning of life. As you mentioned, I am at your service as someone who has studied philosophy. Due to the field in which I have studied, namely moral philosophy and psychology, I have an ethical-philosophical perspective on this issue. I mention this because I know my limits and do not overstep the bounds of my knowledge. Your readers will inevitably know that the problem of suicide is an extraordinarily multidimensional issue. Philosophers, psychologists, jurists, theologians, and others have written about it, and it is natural that you will not expect me to examine all these dimensions. With this preamble, I will, for now, set aside psychological claims as much as possible and leave them to the specialists, and instead focus on the philosophy of suicide; I will try to clarify for you what we are talking about, philosophically, when we speak about the problem of suicide.

When you ask me whether suicide is a justified act, you undoubtedly do not expect me to answer your question with a simple yes or no. Naturally, when such a complex issue is before us, it requires various distinctions. Clarifying the question is, in my view, one of the most important tasks a philosopher must undertake when confronted with a phenomenon. If we fail to separate different aspects, our philosophical judgment will become contaminated and exceedingly difficult. Let me put it to you this way: in this interview, when I speak with you about suicide, I have several qualifications in mind, and I apply these qualifications mentally so that I can limit my judgment. According to statistics provided by the World Health Organization, we face approximately one million suicides worldwide annually. Even if we assume this approximate statistic is correct, according to the same WHO statistics, roughly fifty percent of these individuals are those whose suicide has psychological causes and roots. In what sense? For example, these are people who have severe drug or alcohol addiction; people who have very fragile romantic relationships; people who are grappling with financial problems, and so on. Apparently, according to these statistics, fifty percent of the population who commit suicide are generally afflicted and caught up in these issues. These kinds of psychological issues are matters that, in a philosophical sense, cast such a shadow over your thought and mind that one can say they deprive a person of free will. That is, when someone faces these problems (for instance, drug addiction or fragile romantic relationships) and commits suicide, in those circumstances and states, they generally suffer from a 'weakness of will and volition,' and these problems and difficulties gnaw at the individual's spirit and psyche to such an extent that will and volition are taken from them. I mentioned this point to you to say that, as it happens, the philosophical problem that philosophers pose regarding suicide, and which is also under consideration here, is precisely not this type of suicidal phenomenon. What is philosophically interesting to me, what I currently have in mind and want to talk about, pertains to that kind of suicide where the individual chooses suicide freely and consciously. In addition to these two qualifications (free and conscious), I must add another qualification, which is that the individual is in a relatively stable mental and psychological state and is someone we can call a relatively reasonable person. So, you see, in this interview, when I talk about suicide, I have several qualifications in mind: the person who commits suicide or contemplates committing suicide in their mind is a relatively reasonable individual, is in an almost stable mental and psychological state, and also intends to carry out such an act freely and consciously. Suppose such a person wakes up one day and, freely, reflects and reaches the conclusion that this life is not worth living and that they must end their life. These assumptions and qualifications I have introduced here were to narrow the scope of the discussion as much as possible so that I can express my judgment more precisely. The broader the issue of suicide and its instances, the more difficult it will be to judge. For example, with the assumptions I have presented, those suicides that are not carried out freely and where the individual is not in a state of consciousness to make such a decision are not my concern. For this reason, suicides that fall under the discussion of euthanasia are currently outside the scope of my discussion.

In addition to the constraints I outlined, let me also assume here the right to suicide. Following David Hume, the renowned eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher who wrote a relatively short treatise on suicide, I accept that suicide is considered a right of human beings. As you know, most religious believers hold that we do not have such a right because God is the only one who has the right to take life from us. So let us, for now, set aside the religious believers and, in the parlance of phenomenologists, bracket them out, put them in brackets. If there is time, we will address this issue as well. So, with that in mind, suppose David Hume was right and human beings do have this right (the right to suicide). Of course, in our time, given the discussions surrounding human rights, this might seem obvious, but in David Hume's time it was by no means considered obvious. The important point here, and where I think David Hume went somewhat astray, is that he thinks once suicide is recognized as a right, the problem is solved. I, on the contrary, think precisely the opposite of Hume: once we recognize suicide as a right, our philosophical problem only just begins. Recognizing something as a right does not necessarily justify that thing. In fact, if in answer to the question "Why did you do that?" you reply "Because it was my right," you have not yet given a justified answer. The reason is that the aforementioned question, in the language of philosophers, remains "open," and one can continue to question it. In fact, the important question that then arises for us is when, where, and for what moral reasons we can exercise this right. To say that suicide is our right is one thing; but to say that something which is our right permits us to exercise that right always and without any constraint is another matter entirely. It seems clear that the second claim—that matters considered our rights necessarily permit us to perform them—is false. Setting aside the obsolete right to slavery, suppose an individual has the right to harm their own body or to engage in prostitution. The question is, assuming we accept this right, does the individual also have a moral reason to harm their own body? Does a sex worker have a moral reason to do such a thing? One can cite many moral philosophers who, while considering prostitution a human right, reject its moral permissibility. These philosophers, in my belief, have rightly drawn a veil between right and morality so that the verdict of one does not always and invariably extend to the other.

With the explanation I have given you, I think we can apply such a distinction to suicide as well. We have assumed that suicide is our right. Now the question is, when can we defend our right to suicide? Are we always and in every circumstance permitted to commit suicide and end our lives? A simple answer that might immediately spring to mind is that, in the era in which we live, most psychologists consider suicidal thoughts a kind of defect and illness, to the extent that they see it as a product of depression. Of course, I do not want to say that because psychologists consider suicide an illness, this is a reason that suicide is unjustified. Rather, I only want to say that in the period we live in, most reasonable people still believe that suicide is not a desirable act. We can almost say that the majority of experts in the field, especially those working in psychology and sociology, view suicide as a predicament and a problem that efforts should be made to eradicate. Note that I have only mentioned this point here as an observation, and it is not part of my argument against suicide or a reason for its immorality. Anyway, if you will allow me, let me summarize what I have said so far and return to the question I posed a few moments ago. I believe that suicide is our right, and in this phenomenon, a relatively reasonable individual who is in a balanced mental and psychological state freely and consciously undertakes such an act and decides to end their life for some reason. We can easily bring to mind examples of suicide with the assumptions I have mentioned that we do not consider desirable and for which we find no justified reason in favor of suicide. Let me give an example. Suppose a sane, mature individual (over thirty years old) who is in a balanced mental and psychological state intends to commit suicide. Suppose we ask this person why they have made such a decision, and imagine this person replies, "I want to commit suicide because I don't have enough money to travel around the world," or says, "I don't have enough money to buy a certain high-end car." I think it is almost very simple that the common intuitions among most people do not have a positive judgment about this response, and most reasonable people would blame this individual. That is, even if reasonable people imagine that they have the right to suicide, they think their reason for suicide is not a convincing one. If you accept this example, then I have given you a simple example of suicide from one end of the spectrum and shown that we do not always have sufficient reason to exercise this right. But let me tell you about the other end of the spectrum as well. At the other end, not only is the act we perform similar to suicide, but we also praise it. Suppose someone wants to go to war to defend their homeland. Based on the information they have, they almost know that if they set foot on the battlefield, they will most likely be killed. That is, they are aware that if they set foot on the battlefield, their return is very, very unlikely. In religious literature, we call this phenomenon martyrdom. Here there is a very delicate link between the matter of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, and suicide: someone knows they will be killed but does not stop moving. Let me preempt an objection right away. I brought up the example of martyrdom only to tell you that we can have various types of suicide at both ends of the spectrum. One type that we blame and one type that we even praise. Of course, there is no dispute in the example, and I know that in the example of martyrdom I gave you, you might object that the person intending to enter the battlefield does not have the intention of suicide. I accept this objection with some tolerance and in certain cases, but I do not think it damages the body of my argument. In my opinion, most examples of suicide that are philosophically interesting and controversial lie between these two ends of the spectrum. As I said, suppose an individual, in sound mind and mental balance, freely and consciously thinks about the meaning of life and concludes that there is no meaning to life and that life is not worth living. Well, here we are in a situation where we can neither easily blame this individual nor easily praise them. What will our response be to this person? What is our judgment regarding this type of suicide? I have an argument here. Firstly, I try to put myself in this person's shoes.

The first question I ask this person is: if you intend to commit suicide, do you still have any hope that you might somehow find the missing meaning of life in the future? Are you still hopeful? Here, two situations arise: the person intending suicide will tell me that they are still hopeful and can imagine that perhaps one day the absent meaning will be found and manifest itself in the future. If life has been meaningless for them until now, perhaps in the future they can find some meaning (however small) for life. If this person gives me such an answer, I think, since they still have hope, suicide is not justified for them. That is, having hope can be considered a reason against their suicide. But the matter becomes more complicated when this person tells me they have no hope whatsoever that a "caravan bell" will be heard from anywhere and are utterly hopeless. In confronting this person in this state, I can argue that although this person says they have no hope, in my view, they are actually still hopeful. With this explanation: when a person says life in this here and now, in its current state, is not meaningful and they must end their life, I believe a kind of hope is implicitly and covertly embedded in this person; hope for the future and the next state. That is, although this person thinks hope cannot be found in the here and now and this situation is dire, they simultaneously imagine that by moving from this situation to another, they will be in better conditions. They hope that by ending situation (A), i.e., the current situation in which suffering exists, they will transition to situation (B) and there attain better and more meaning and less suffering. If such a person does not think this, they are not a reasonable person. It is natural that reasonable people, with a simple cost-benefit analysis, when they decide to attempt suicide, think that the subsequent condition (i.e., non-being) is better than being (in the now). That is, such an assumption is covert in their mind even if they do not articulate it. In this very proposition I just mentioned to you—that non-being is better than being—I believe there is a glimmer of hope. The person here hopes that their non-being will be better than their being. This hope for non-being, in my belief, is not justified for a reasonable person. Because this person, in both situations (A) and (B), faces an unknown future and is ignorant of what lies ahead. Yet, regarding one of the situations (B), they are hopeful and think that by suicide they will reach a better state. This is while they could also be hopeful regarding the other situation (A) and refrain from suicide.

Let me summarize my argument. A person who wants to commit suicide either has hope for the future—in which case, I believe they have not found a convincing reason for suicide under these circumstances—or they are without hope. In my view, someone who is without hope is also, in a sense, hopeful; that is, they are not hopeful about the current situation, but they are hopeful about the next, indeterminate situation they will find themselves in. This hopefulness about the next state cannot justify suicide for a reasonable person, because we can ask this person: if you are still hopeful about another state (the next state), why can you not apply that same hope to this current state? Why can you not remain hopeful in this very present state? You see, my argument is actually based on a very simple cognitive fact, namely that our human brains have many cognitive limitations. We are not aware of everything and cannot know the future with certainty. It is our unwarranted emotions that represent matters as if the future is in our grasp and is as bitter or sweet as the present. Naturally, my argument is for the average person; I am not arguing for those who know the future or see another world! There is no doubt that we average people are ignorant, and I believe this ignorance and unawareness can, to a large extent, give us hope. No one is so knowledgeable as to be hopeless about everything. If we have even a very small amount of hope, this hope gives us at least one reason against suicide.

You have inevitably realized by now that I have considerably narrowed the gates for considering the act of suicide justified. I think that if people have even a glimmer of hope, we can hardly tell them they have a reason for suicide. And even those who are hopeless, I believe a kind of hope is still latent and implicit in them (non-existence being better than existence, or the state after death being better). Yet, despite all my arguments, one might perhaps conceive of the possibility that someone could be almost justifiably without hope and almost certain that the future ahead of them is not meaningful. Although such cases are very, very rare, let us, as Avicenna said, at least consider their possibility: “Whatever strange thing reaches your ears, leave it in the realm of possibility.” Now, assuming such a person exists and assuming the above constraints, I can admit that it is probable they are morally permitted to commit suicide.

Question: The fulcrum of your argument is “hope.” And it seems to me that, of the two aspects of the meaning-of-life issue (namely hope and doubt), you have only mounted the steed of your desire in one direction. How do you consider the reasons or evidence for the precedence of the possibility of one over the other to be justified and reasonable? For we know that good things may happen in the future, and based on this, we may find meaning for life. Well! Does not this very “potential realizability of goodness, hope, and meaning” carry the same rational weight and modal status as the “potential realizability of badness, suspension, and nihilism”…?! True, proportionate to our ignorance in predicting the life yet to come, that unborn life itself is, with respect to the possibility of things getting better or worse, indifferent and capable of bearing two children: good or evil. But, in line with your chosen view, I intend to consider its other, hard, bitter, and despair-inducing side as well. Meaning may not be found; the worst events may occur; suffering may increase, along with countless, innumerable possibilities. In fact, it seems to me that this ignorance of ours regarding the future creates a kind of neutral zone that opens up the space for choice. That is, just as much as we hope good things will happen, equally unfortunate events may await us. Given that the fulcrum of the argument is hope, or rather the unknown future, it seems to me that complete autonomy can be granted to the individual (provided the constraints you mentioned are met) for suicide or for continuing life, and no praise or blame should come to the person; because, as you said, the future is unknown and we are ignorant of it!

Answer: You are right, the fulcrum of my argument is hope for an unknown future. When someone is “hopeful” about the future and does not know what it holds, they naturally look to its positive aspects, not the negative. If they looked to the negative aspects, it would no longer be called hope. Even someone contemplating suicide and intending to carry it out is hopeful for a better unknown future. Of course, this world is a world of possibilities, and it is possible that someone, even with hope, may find no meaning in the future and suffer. There is no necessary relationship between having hope and finding meaning in life. In some matters, one might even say that unwarranted hope is not desirable. As the famous saying goes, “And in despair is one of the two comforts”; sometimes giving up hope of attaining the desired object brings comfort to a person. Beyond that, our human experience has shown that suffering is an inseparable part of life in this world, and there is no escape or deliverance from it. Therefore, one might say that it is highly probable that some measure of suffering occurs in everyone’s life. Nevertheless, someone who sees themselves as hopeful tries to view the positive aspects of life as even slightly outweighing the negative aspects. I know well that positive thinking depends greatly on individuals’ states and personalities, and someone who suffers from neurosis can hardly entertain such a thought. But do not think my words are unscientific advice to simply think positively. In my belief, a reasonable person thinks this way. Cognitive psychologists working in the field of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) say this. These psychologists believe that an individual with a balanced and moderate psyche tends toward positive thinking. When a reasonable person sees life in suffering (which they certainly do), they either assign a fifty percent positive probability and will be hopeful that their suffering will one day turn into good and perhaps even strengthen their psyche, or they assign a fifty percent negative probability and imagine this suffering will continue and even increase. In this second state, the thought of suicide may emerge in their mind, but acting on suicide would not be reasonable, because they can be challenged: why do you not see the post-death situation as full of suffering and only consider suffering as belonging to the continuation of the current state? Perhaps suffering continues after death as well. When suffering can easily be imagined both in the continuation of the current state and in the subsequent state, why should one end the current state?

Perhaps this argument can even be taken a step further. Suppose in your philosophy of mind you are not a physicalist and have left some room, however small, for the soul (a non-material entity), and you believe that whatever the soul and psyche of humans have acquired in the current state, they will carry into the next state. With such an assumption, someone could tell you that by committing suicide and ending the current state, your suffering soul and psyche will remain suffering in the next state. Would it not be better to organize your suffering soul and psyche before passing from this state? It is probable that by organizing the state of your soul and psyche, the thought of suicide will leave your mind. But if you are a physicalist and believe that by ending the program evolution has laid out for your body, everything ends, one can still argue against you: first, why and on what grounds do you preempt evolution? Let it take its course. Second, as I said before, even if there is no soul, we do not know that after suicide, in the subsequent state, our suffering will definitely and certainly be less. Therefore, how can a reasonable person be hopeful of reaching a necessarily better state?

Question: Can conditions be theoretically conceived and practically realized in which suicide is permissible? That which is called a form of “euthanasia.” For example: an individual suffering and writhing in pain from a tormenting and incurable illness; is death closer to their best interest or life?! And furthermore, they themselves have repeatedly, consciously, and freely requested death; is not the best approach and solution to grant their wish, so that perhaps by the hand of such a death, we might reclaim or reduce such exorbitant and agonizing pains and sufferings [in the name of life!] from them?

Answer: I think if one can find very, very rare instances of suicide that are justified, one of those would be in bizarre medical cases. For example, suppose a physician, in whose medical knowledge we have a great deal of trust, contracts a severe and incurable illness, such that this physician knows to a large extent that no cure for his cancer or disease will be found in the next few years, and also knows that he will depart this world before such a treatment or drug is discovered. He can probably predict that in the short time he will live, his life will be full of suffering both for himself and for his loved ones. I think this person probably has justified reasons to end his life. I say probably because someone might object that despite all this, he should remain hopeful, since many improbable things in this world become probable by a gesture or by chance.

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Exclusive Sedanet Interview with Dr. Hossein Dabbagh | Part One | Suicide

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