Kant and Camus on the Ethics of Suicide Compared

Introduction

Morality appears to us as a concrete term underscored by certain rational assumptions about the universe. And yet, our own experience tells us that what one person considers vice may, to another, be seen as virtue. The reverse may also apply. It is therefore rather difficult to reconcile what actually defines our cause for moral behavior, though all major figures in the history of philosophy have ventured a framework through which to do so. This challenge has provoked a somewhat universal consideration of the moral implications of life itself and, by extension, of death. It has, in turn, forced a confrontation with the relationship between a person's power over his or her own life and, by consequence, power over his or her own death.

Those thinkers who have sought to address morality as a function of human existence have equally often endeavored to understand where the act of suicide falls within this discussion. In examining the various possible lenses through which to understand the moral imperatives relating to suicide, this paper considers the widely divergent views of German philosopher Immanuel Kant and French-Algerian absurdist Albert Camus. Ironically, though both thinkers proceed from structural perspectives of wholly different and perhaps even conflicting ethical frameworks, they nonetheless arrive at a shared rejection of suicide.

Kant's Normative Ethics and the Categorical Imperative

Kant's 1785 Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals provides a foundational understanding of morality from the normative perspective. It is the most rigid, socially constrained, and arguably the most demanding of ethical frameworks, yet it remains wholly unique in its orientation and provisions for its time and place.

At the center of Kant's argument is the premise that the same reason which applies to empirical scientific discourse must rationally apply in the same way to ethical discourse. His perspective bridges the corporeal and the ideological in an original way. Accordingly, Kant contends that "physics will have its empirical part, but it will also have a rational one; and likewise ethics — although here the empirical part might be called specifically practical anthropology, while the rational part might properly be called morals" (Kant, 20). To Kant, previous ideals of ethical autonomy threatened social order by allowing individuals to devise their own ethical parameters. The rationality of scientific practicality points instead toward a heteronomous orientation, whereby a connective tissue of ethicality common to all people restrains and directs behavior. Kant defines autonomy as the ability to act based on one's own volition, while heteronomy refers to a common set of social forces that incline individuals toward shared motives and actions.

Accordingly, Kant lays out a concise framework for justice, declaring that "the categorical imperative, which declares the action to be objectively necessary without referring to any end in view . . . holds as an apodictic practical principle" (Kant, 18). The categorical imperative is foundational to the normative theory that there is some immutable force associated with our conception and actualization of "good" and "evil." It suggests that the means by which we behave are inherently informed by our commitment to a single, shared, and unchanging idea of what is right. To commit to this idea is to exercise practical reason; to fail to do so is irrational. This allows Kant to propose a positive correlation between rationality and morality.

It is on this basis that Kant expressly rejects two conditions elemental to suicide. The first is that suicide constitutes an irrational act of self-harm contrary to the absolute moral imperatives underscoring man's theologically constructed presence on Earth. The failure to further the cause of one's own survival is also perceived as an autonomous act that reflects precisely the moral chaos against which Kant warns. Kant argues that moral order is impossible to define without permanent standards shaped by human dignity, and that it is therefore only reasonable to act in accordance with the imperative of self-preservation. A submission to acts that are counterintuitive to self-preservation — such as suicide — represents a withdrawal from the categorical imperative and the kind of destructive individualism Kant views as dangerous to society. The inextricable relationship between theology and morality throughout history has had a tangible impact on the way such standards are defined and enforced.

Kant rejects any flexibility in these standards outright. Beyond its deviation from his established disposition toward moral absolutes, suicide also violates Kant's maxim that man must be treated as an end rather than a means. Human dignity defines right and wrong, and this dignity cannot be discarded. As Kant pointedly states, "the laws of morality are laws according to which everything ought to happen; they allow for conditions under which what ought to happen doesn't happen" (Kant, 1).

Camus and the Absurdist Rejection of Suicide

Like Kant, Camus asserts a clear ethical rejection of suicide, as demonstrated in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus. Published in 1942, the work concerns the absurdity of life and the necessity of recognizing this absurdity without succumbing to nihilism. However, as it addresses suicide as a possible outcome of confronting life's apparent meaninglessness, The Myth of Sisyphus takes an explicit stance against the Kantian categorical imperative. Camus clearly rejects the emphasis on the broad social impact of individual decisions. He writes that "suicide has never been dealt with except as a social phenomenon. On the contrary, we are concerned here at the outset, with the relationship between individual thought and suicide. An act like this is prepared within the silence of the heart, as is a great work of art" (Camus, 4).

Beyond the poetic impulse of that passage, Camus takes the view that each individual's unique battle with the absurd meaninglessness of life will take on its own proportions. He insists that there is an inherent tendency in all people to consider the implications of suicide, whether or not this ever reaches a serious or actionable level. This is, Camus argues, because the sudden awareness — or the persistent enduring — of life's apparent absence of meaning may be far more devastating to a person than "bad reasons in a familiar world" (Camus, 6).

And yet, Camus offers something compelling as a response to the equation between absurdity and despair. He concedes that despair is a certainty, that suffering is inherent, and that meaninglessness is irreparable. But he holds out hope as the rational alternative to suicide, arguing that "perhaps we shall be able to overtake that elusive feeling of absurdity in the different but closely related worlds of intelligence, of the art of living, or of art itself. The climate of absurdity is in the beginning. The end is the absurd universe and that attitude of mind which lights the world with its true colors to bring out the privileged and implacable visage which that attitude has discerned in it" (Camus, 12). Through channeling hope for moments of pleasure, insight, awakening, or simplicity, one may embrace the absurdity of life as the only purpose in and of itself. This vision of the absurd hero — who lives in full awareness of meaninglessness yet persists regardless — is central to Camus's rejection of suicide as a valid response.

The direct reply that might be channeled from the absolutist ideals of Kant is that a great many people will lack the capacity to channel the characteristics Camus describes. The abject misery and "undermining" of self — to use terminology offered by Camus — that lead to suicide are too often symptomatic of an inherent incapacity or unwillingness to cope. Camus's offer of hope seems attractive only to those who possess the psychological resilience that makes them unlikely candidates for suicide in the first place. In this sense, the very audience most in need of Camus's counsel may be least equipped to receive it, which raises serious questions about the practical reach of the absurdist framework.

Conclusion

Camus, A. (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus. Vintage.

Kant, Immanuel. 1785. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Jonathan Bennett.