Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 39 No. 1, 2024.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21464/sp39108
Suicide of Rationality, Rationality of Suicide – Spinoza on Self-Destruction
Enes Dağ
; Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, 06220, Kecioren, Ankara, Turkey
Abstract
This article examines the metaphysical and moral foundations of Spinoza’s account of suicide. Spinoza’s treatment of suicide is brought into question by his conatus doctrine, which posits the striving to preserve one’s own being as the very essence of existence. Accordingly, suicide, or the termination of life, as the destruction of one’s own being, represents the exhaustion of this striving. The analysis of the causes that lead to self-destruction has sparked significant debate in Spinoza’s literature, raising the question of whether suicide is a passive and irrational decision or a free and rational choice. This article, which engages with prominent scholars of this literature, notably Matson, Bennett, LeBuffe and Nadler, aims to alleviate this controversy by offering alternative readings and arguments. It concludes that free and rational suicide does not exist in Spinoza’s thought; instead, the “suicide of reason or rationality” forms the basis for bodily suicide.
Keywords
Spinoza; rationality of suicide; ethics; metaphysics; conatus; destruction
Hrčak ID:
321376
URI
Publication date:
11.10.2024.
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