The Limits of Rationality: Rationality, Suicidality, and Affectivity

In this project, I expose conceptual and moral difficulties with the concept of

rational suicide. After offering a comprehensive list of criteria used to define rationality

in the bioethics literature, I turn to the scholarship of Susan Sherwin, Susan Wolf,

Rosemarie Tong, Lisa Ikemoto and others to apply feminist critiques regarding the

privileging of the liberal individual and claims of value neutrality in bioethics generally

to the rational suicide literature specifically. Further, using the work of Genevieve Lloyd,

I argue that just as definitions of rationality have been used to marginalize vulnerable

populations (e.g., women and minorities), a similar marginalization of suiciders occurs in

the rational suicide literature. In order to rectify this marginalization, I call on Jean

Am廨y's account of his own suicidality, and through exegesis of On Suicide: A Discourse

on Voluntary Death, I argue that Am廨y's account reveals that suicidality is neither

rational nor irrational, but arational. Given that in some instances of the lived experience

of suicidality, discussions of rationality are not applicable, I question the efficacy of

"rational suicide" as the concept upon which to ground arguments for the moral

permissibility of suicide and assisted suicide. Finally, having established both conceptual

and moral difficulties with the concept of rational suicide, I argue for a new concept upon

which to base arguments for the moral permissibility of suicide, appropriate death.