Is the right to suicide an inalienable right?

“Life, liberty and property” - these are the inalienable rights Locke presents to us in his Second Treatise of Government. ‘Inalienable’ refers to the idea that nobody, not even the State, can deprive one of such rights. A paradox arises: what if the one depriving the other from such a right, was oneself? It seems improbable one would deprive oneself of liberty or property, but deprivation of life - known as suicide, has been existing for hundreds of years BC, from the self-sacrificial to the ever-present albeit undiscovered mental disorders. Thus a debate comes about of whether the right to liberty, the right to property and the right to life are mutually limiting within their parameters, or is the right to suicide an unmentioned but assumed inalienable right on its own.

The catalyst claim for this train of thought goes as follows: “Though the man in that state has uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has no liberty to destroy himself” (Locke, 1997). In other words, Locke attributes men’s prohibition from committing suicide to men’s obligation to preserve other men, the creations of the same God. “Everyone, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, [...] ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind”. To harm oneself would be as equally unacceptable as harming another. In this regard, the mere term for a right to suicide is diametrically opposed to Locke’s implication. Vallentyne explains Libertarianism relies on the psychological and moral autonomy of individuals. Note Locke's fundamental philosophy subscribes that men should be free to overthrow authority when it interferes with how one ought to live. Indeed, this liberal view is what led Nozick, amongst other philosophers, to consider Locke to be a libertarian (Nozick, 1974). Thus the paradox lies in how a leading figure in the subscription to the idea that men are free, autonomous, moral agents can also subscribe to the prohibition of a collectively inconsequential act. In fact, it could be argued that by promoting the right to life, liberty and property, the right to liberty and life implies full ownership of what one decides to do with such liberty and life as long as it does not harm another. Because not speaking is included in freedom of speech, and not acting upon certain freedoms does not mean a breach of the right to liberty, not living should equally be included in the right to live. Abstention from a right does not mean acting against it. However, Vallentyne comes up with an argument to this: it is asserted that rights shield the rights holder's interests, not necessarily their preferences (or will). Ownership is typically interpreted as a set of rights that safeguard individual preferences. When interpreted in this way, the right-legal holder's consent ensures that none of his or her rights are violated. Contrary to popular belief, consent does not always play such an important part in the interest theory of rights. Instead, what matters is the right-holders interests. For instance, even if I knowingly give myself permission to kill myself, if doing so would be in my best interest, I could still do it (Vallentyne, n.d.). The same applies to euthanasia or cannibalism if it were to be to another, so despite the presumed indifference of libertarianism vis-à-vis suicide, the implications of ownership and rights overrule the significance of consent if it digresses from the right holder’s best interest - which is to live. Thus, suicide, within the libertarian context, while a product of the right holder’s inalienable liberty of decisive agency, is not an inalienable right as it counteracts against the ethos that withholds the absoluteness of Locke’s natural rights, that is, to preserve mankind. 

It is worth noting the libertarian assumes the best interest of the individual must be to live, regardless of the circumstances he has been bestowed. Under the assumption that the end goal of acting upon one’s interest is to eventually maximise one’s happiness, life itself may sometimes be the worst alternative. The experiences of tragedy, physical and mental illnesses and trauma, have indeed proven that life is, in itself, suffering. Thus arises the question of whether one should stay alive if the sensory experience of life seldom brings about pain, and the utilitarian response differs from that of the libertarian. The utilitarian philosophy endorses that an action is right if it tends to foster happiness and is wrong if it tends to foster sadness or the opposite of happiness (Mill, 1863). This applies to everyone it has an impact on, not just the actor. It is a given that happiness and suffering are terms only existing within the parameters of the senses, however, if death equates to numbness or insensitivity, and these two are extremely mild versions of suffering, should suicide not be an antidote to pain like any other? If that is the only possible outcome at the disposal of the actor, suicide should not only be legitimate but because it ‘fosters happiness’, should indeed be considered a right for an individual to have at their disposal as another innocuous tool to maximise happiness and reduce suffering. There are two counterarguments to this. Firstly argued by Phillip E. Devine, the utilitarian cost-benefit analysis requires a clear familiarity with the alternatives, however, the alternative of death is unknown, and thus impossible to weigh at the face of life. To compare the state of being alive with the state of being dead under the pretence that an unknown sensation is better than the current one is logically invalid and thus an ill foundation for a right (Devine, 1978).  Furthermore, the utilitarian approach specifies that the choice should not harm those affected by it, including family members, yet the psychological burden fueled with anguish and guilt of a loved one’s suicide is not only severe but irreparable (M Pabst Battin, 2015). Thus the cost-benefit analysis might not always weigh in favour of the right-holder, and to act upon suicide is morally impermissible, let alone an inalienable right. A response to this is that, while it may leave people marked, the anguish left may be no different from the one they might feel watching their loved one carry a painful life of suffering (Cholbi, 2011). Thus the pain of the family should not be compared to the suffering of the individual before death but to the pain they would vicariously feel had the suicide not been committed. All in all, from a utilitarian perspective, it is clear it is not entirely permissible either and therefore impossible to be proposed as an inalienable right. 

While it remains ever-present, Locke’s brief but poignant take on suicide has incited a long debate on the moral permissibility of the act, to the extent that it could be an inalienable right as an extension of the right of liberty itself. Contextualised in the different paradigms of libertarianism and utilitarianism, the moral permissibility of the act oscillates depending on the seriousness with which the philosophy is taken. Taking the extremes of each philosophy for the sake of the debate, the conclusion on the extent to which suicide can be an inalienable right range from some to no extent. In the case of libertarianism, its permissibility lies in the decisive agency held by the right to liberty but stops when it counteracts the best interest of the individual that inalienable rights set out to protect. In the case of utilitarianism, its permissibility lies in the mere reduction of suffering, but stops at the pain caused to their loved ones. Not to mention the logical inconsistency of favouring an inconceivable circumstance over the current one. In essence, suicide cannot be an inalienable right, but will nonetheless remain an alternative to suffering for humans regardless of the consequences of its moral impermissibility, or lack thereof.