In these brief notes I shall not attempt to deal with the question of the right to life in general, but with the right to one’s own life, which corresponds to the ancient formula of jus vitae necisque. It is the right to accept human existence, or to put an end to it voluntarily. I intend to compare certain characteristic points of view which have been formulated in this connection in the East and in the West. However, the problem will not be considered from a social point of view, but rather from an interior spiritual one, whence it appears in the shape of a problem of responsibility only to our own selves. For this reason, I shall not deal with theories, such as that of the Japanese hara-kiri, or suicide for reasons of honor or loyalty, nor with similar doctrines which we also find in the West.
Perhaps the severest and most virile form in which the right to dispose freely of one’s own earthly existence is asserted in the West is found in the theory of Stoicism, and more particularly in the Stoicism of Seneca. This doctrine of suicide, unique on account of the peculiar ethos with which it is justified, may serve for us as a starting point. Seneca and the Roman Stoics conceived earthly existence in the form of a struggle and a test. According to Seneca the real man stands above the gods themselves. The gods, owing to their very nature, do not know adversity and disaster. Man, by contrast, is subject to these, but also has the power of triumphing over them. Unhappy is he who has never encountered disaster and suffering, Seneca wrote, for he has had no occasion to put his own powers to the test and to know them. To man something greater than mere exemption from ills has been granted: the power of triumphing over them within himself. And those beings who have been most subject to trials should be regarded as the worthiest, if we bear in mind that in war the commanders entrust the most exposed positions to the strongest and best qualified men, whereas the less brave, the weaker, and the less trustworthy are employed in the less difficult, but also less glorious positions of the rear.
In a general way, this is also the order of ideas brought forward when suicide is condemned and stigmatized as a form of cowardice and desertion. Seneca instead comes to the opposite conclusion, and actually attributes the justification of suicide to God himself (De Provid., VI, 7–9). He makes God say that he has granted to the true man and the wise man a power beyond all contingencies; that he has so disposed things that no one may be restrained when he no longer wishes to be; the way of departure is open to him: latet exitus. “Whenever you do not wish to fight, retreat is ever possible. Nothing easier is granted to you than to die.” The expression used, “si pugnare non vultis, licet fugere,” with reference to the voluntary death which the wise man is free to choose, may leave us perplexed. But the actual context within the ethics of Stoicism as a whole explains what is meant here.
There can be no doubt that when death is sought because a certain situation appears unbearable, from the point of view of virile ethics, suicide cannot be justified. In those very cases where a humanitarian point of view might admit the right to commit suicide, virile ethics cannot excuse it. Still less does it permit a man to take his own life through motives of affection or passion, because this would imply a passive attitude, and one of impotence with regard to one’s own spirit, thus deserving condemnation. Strictly speaking, from the point of view of Stoicism, suicide even for honor or similar motives (i.e., with reference to social conditions), is not admitted.
The Stoic must distinguish between “that which depends on oneself” and “that which does not depend on oneself,” and must follow the principle that that which does not depend on oneself does not pledge one’s responsibility, must not affect the mind of the wise man, and must not constitute the measure of one’s own value or dignity. As we know, this principle of detachment is in harmony with all that which India has regarded as truly spiritual. When we consider this, Seneca’s maxim can only indicate the importance to be attributed to the inner liberty of a higher being. It is not a question of retreating because we do not feel strong enough to face certain circumstances or trials. It is rather a case of the sovereign right, which we should always reserve for ourselves, of accepting or not accepting these trials, and also of placing a limit to them when we no longer see any meaning in them, or have sufficiently proved to ourselves our own capacity for overcoming them. Impassiveness thus remains the presupposition of that maxim, and the right of “exit” is justified only as one of the factors which may assure us that the vicissitudes in which we are involved have our consent; that in them we are truly active, that we are not merely making a virtue of necessity. This point of view is rational and unimpeachable.
Things would, however, present another aspect if we were to apply the heteronomous framework common to theistic and religious conceptions to the agonistic and virile conception of life. Cicero attributes to Pythagoras the following saying: “To quit the post which has been entrusted to us in life is not permissible without the orders of the Chief, i.e., of God.” That is the same view as that of Catholic moral theology, which actually reaches the point of condemning these who seek unnecessary martyrdom as guilty of sin.
Nevertheless, this appeal to an almost military form of fealty comes up against certain objections, because it presupposes a prior free and conscious devotion to a Chief. But from the point of view of Western religion we cannot speak of this, because that religious tradition denies that the soul exists before being associated with the body in this life. We suddenly find ourselves in the “post” mentioned above, because before being there we had no existence at all; we are thus there without having willed or accepted it. We cannot then speak of responsibility, or of “military duty,” or of a debt for a life received, but not asked for. Hence the prohibition on suicide has no inner logic; there is only an appeal to faith, a mere acceptance of the will of God.
In Seneca’s conception, the horizon is broader and freer; there remains the idea of finding ourselves through our place in a conflict. And there remains the general command of holding fast, but the person is conceived as being free, and it is the person who has the last word. It is thus on the basis of considerations of a different and interior nature that he must decide as to his own responsibility and his actual right to his own life.