Suicide as a violation of a duty of virtue
Abstract
The human ways of dying are nowadays a theme of bioethics. Bioethics reacts to a technological civilization that absorbs the natural occurrence of death in technical mechanisms. The technological interventions exclude suicide from the bioethical debate on the death of human beings. Differently from bioethics, that limits itself to examine the relationships of third parties in view of the voluntary death of individuals, the Kantian doctrine of virtue considers suicide as a violation of the strict duty towards ourselves. The article discusses the reasons why Kant was opposed to suicide and situates his prohibition in the later work of the German philosopher.
Key words: Kant, practical reason, suicide, doctrine of virtue, kantian theory of duties.Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
I grant the Filosofia Unisinos – Unisinos Journal of Philosophy the first publication of my article, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0 (which allows sharing of work, recognition of authorship and initial publication in this journal).
I confirm that my article is not being submitted to another publication and has not been published in its entirely on another journal. I take full responsibility for its originality and I will also claim responsibility for charges from claims by third parties concerning the authorship of the article.
