Wanting Someone to Not Commit Suicide Is Equally As Selfish As Wanting to Commit Suicide

The value of a human life is purely subjective, as is the pain of emotional trauma. In this hypothetical situation of Steve's suicidal intents, Steve clearly believes that his life is no longer worth living while Jane and Matthew oppose this belief. Because both parties intend to decide whether life or death, two polar opposites, is appropriate for Steve, they are equally selfish in attempting to carry out their own agendas and desires. While Jane and Matthew no doubt have good intentions, they still are perfect examples of placing their desires above those of Steve; in this case, their desire for him to live being placed about Steve's desire to die. Whether or not X chooses to end his life over the loss of his wife is entirely up to him. The same can be said for Steve in the grandchildren scenario. Steve does not owe anything to his grandchildren. He did not choose to have them; they were the product of Steve's children deciding to have children, a choice Steve had nothing to do with. If others attempt to persuade Steve into not committing suicide so that he may continue to live in order to care for his grandchildren, then this would mean that these people view Steve as simply a means to an end. The end in this case being the consolation for Steve's grandchildren. Whether or not Steve is thinking rationally is entirely irrelevant to this debate. The subject is the selfishness of suicide and the selfishness of those who oppose it, not whether or not it is a rational decision. In the case of X and Y, I would like to point out that analogies about life, and frankly probably everything, can be misleading. Con gives such an analogy as comparing life to a game and that suicide is a way of quitting the game. However, because these analogies can made so freely, I will craft my own in order to prove my point in addition to debunking Con's analogy. If I were to say that life is like a race to the finish line (the finish line being death), then X and Y will be having a fundamental disagreement about what course of action X should take. X wishes to cross the finish line as quickly as possible, Y wants X to cross the finish line as slowly as possible. Because these two desires are polar opposites, it is shown quite plainly that both X and Y are equally selfish in their desires to determine how quickly X should cross the finish line. In Con's analogy, both X and Y are still both equally selfish. X wishes to stop playing "the game" while Y wishes for X to continue to play "the game. " Because these desires are also polar opposites, their selfishness present in said desires are in equilibrium. In response to Con's argument about the "right to life," I would like to point out that the morality that Con speaks of is entirely subjective. Perhaps one person thinks that not killing is a morally good act, but another thinks that not killing is a morally bad act. One of these parties will be committing a breach of their moral code if they do not act upon it. Because of the subjective nature of morality, the idea of saving a person's life as being selfless is rendered invalid. One final thing I would like to discuss is the idea of selflessness. It is not logically possibly to intentionally commit a selfless act. The only time a selfless act can be performed is by accident. Take for example, donating money to charity. While the act itself, is presumably beneficial to whatever cause the charity is for, it is also selfishly motivated. Had the charity been for a cause that the person did not support, he or she would not have donated the money to it. Because the charity the person donated the money to did support his or her ideals, the act is a selfish one, regardless of whether or not it benefits others besides the person in question. Even if, for whatever reason, the person had decided to donate money to a charity he did not support, the act is still selfish as he is acting upon his desire to carry out the act.