Discussions about the ethics of suicide are immediately biased by the verb that customarily attaches to it in English. One "commits" suicide. Because this presupposes the wrongfulness of the suicide, I avoid that verb, opting instead for "carry out" suicide. This is evaluatively neutral, avoiding both the usual bias against suicide and the unusual bias in favor of it that the verb "achieve" would effect. "Carry out" is preferable to "practice", which implies something ongoing. Finally, "carry out" also implies a suicide that is completed rather than merely attempted. David Benatar
Some Similar Quotes
  1. And he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding rush of pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart. - Jodi Picoult
  2. I don't want to hurt you or anybody so please forget about me. Just try. Find yourself a better friend. - Nina Lacour
  3. There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can just be like... - Nina Lacour
  4. You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons. - Nina Lacour
  5. The language of love letters is the same as suicide notes. - Courtney Love
More Quotes By David Benatar
  1. It is not the case that one can create new people on the assumption that if they are not pleased to have come into existence they can simply kill themselves. Once somebody has come into existence and attachments with that person have been formed, suicide...
  2. This is not to offer a general recommendation of suicide. Suicide, like death from other causes, makes the lives of those who are bereaved much worse. Rushing into one’s own suicide can have profound negative impact on the lives of those close to one. Although...
  3. Those who take their own lives, especially when the quality of those lives is much less bad than those of the cancer patient or the concentration camp prisoner, fly in the face of the normal will to live. They are seen as abnormal, not merely...
  4. Although they will miss his presence if he dies, his condition is too burdensome to require his continued presence. In such circumstances, what is selfish is the insistence that the prospective suicide remain alive, not that he seek his own demise. The argument about selfishness...
  5. Discussions about the ethics of suicide are immediately biased by the verb that customarily attaches to it in English. One "commits" suicide. Because this presupposes the wrongfulness of the suicide, I avoid that verb, opting instead for "carry out" suicide. This is evaluatively neutral, avoiding...
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