Suicide and ethical theory

Journal ArticleExcept in the present century, suicide has been viewed throughout Western history as an act having ethical significance, one for which moral blame or praise was a proper response. Response, of course, varied with the times. During the Stoic era of Greece and Rome, suicide was praised as the morally responsible act of the wise man. During the medieval Christian era, it was blamed as the most reprehensible of sins. With the influence of Durkheim and Esquirol at the close of the 19th century, however, the old ethical view of suicide was replaced by a newer, scientific one. Suicide came to be seen as the result of sociological and psychological conditions for which the person could not be held responsible, and for which neither blame nor praise would therefore be appropriate