Elective Death: A Study of Writings on the Morality of Suicide

FAIN: FA-11864-77

Margaret P. Battin
University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9049)

A study examining the conflict between conceptions of suicide as immoral and those which seem to entail that suicide is an inalienable right. First will study various historical conceptions of suicide, taking account of major literary treatments as well as of the work of humanists and philosophers. Second will formulate a reasonable position on the morality of suicide. Will also consider an original argument. What the individual may be said to have an obligation, as the results of medical technology, to choose the timing and circumstances of his own death, and thus avoid forcing others to make what are often morally precarious euthanasis decisions for him.