What did Aristotle and kant think about suicide?

Answer 1

Aristotle: Aristotle's only discussion of suicide (Nicomachean Ethics 1138a5-14) is a difficult and confusing passage in which he attempts to explain how suicide can be unjust and deserving of punishment if the individual who could be treated unjustly is the suicidal individual herself. He concludes that suicide is somehow a wrong to the state, though he does not outline the nature of this wrong or the specific vices that suicidal individuals exhibit.

Kant: Immanuel Kant argues against suicide in Fundamental Principles of The Metaphysic of Morals. In accordance with the second formulation of his categorical imperative, Kant argues that, "He who contemplates suicide should ask himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself." Kant's theory looks at the act only, and not at its outcomes and consequences, and claims that one is ethically required to consider whether one would be willing to universalisethe act: to claim everyoneshould behave that way. Kant argues that choosing to commit suicide entails considering oneself as a means to an end, which he rejects: a person, he says, must not be used "...merely as means, but must in all actions always be considered as an end in himself." Therefore, it is unethical to commit suicide to satisfy oneself.

Answer 2

Aristotle viewed suicide as a cowardly act that went against the natural instinct for self-preservation. Kant believed that suicide was morally wrong because it violated the duty to preserve one's own life, which he considered a universal moral principle derived from reason.