Reflecting On My Friend’s Gunshot Suicide

When a friend unexpectedly takes his own life, it can be a shock. That was the case for me in the death of my friend Bill.

Though I have been aware of his views on the right to take one’s own life when continuing to live has become unacceptable, I did not expect that he was anywhere near that decision. His views on the subject are nearly the same as mine, though he thought about his for a much longer time, as a philosophy professor whose late wife Laura had also been a philosophy professor.

If it is only the examined life that is worth living, the two of them easily surpassed that objective by engaging for 43 years in one of the most enlightened and exhaustive examinations of their own lives that I can imagine. That examination encompassed their deaths, as well, because death is a part of life.

Bill and I discussed end-of-life concerns in detail more than 10 years ago when his wife Laura became essentially locked in by a stroke that prevented her from communicating or doing anything for herself. She could receive nutrition only by extraordinary means.

The two of them had long ago resolved that when the ability to function became severely impaired, they would no longer want to live. Bill knew my views and sought my counsel, both personally and as an attorney, after Laura was placed in a second rehab unit that specialized in neurological conditions – and it became apparent that she had no chance of recovering any functional abilities.

At Bill’s request, I met with him, Laura’s mother, and her brother to discuss the best course for her under the circumstances.  All her family members agreed, without hesitation, that obtaining hospice services to provide palliative care while she stopped eating and drinking was the most appropriate way to honor her values and decisions for the end of her life.

Only a serious and authentic realist can make such a decision for another under the circumstances, but Bill (whatever private struggles he may have had) carried out Laura’s wishes with the integrity each of them expected from the other. They were fortunate to find a hospice service and be in a neuro-rehab center that respected their decision and cooperated with it.

While I was not privy to all Bill’s medical issues, I was aware of his struggle with maintaining his vision. We had discussed some medical problems over the years, but not all his health concerns, which apparently reached a point that became unacceptable. Because I don’t know all of his concerns, I cannot fully understand his decision – but it is irrelevant whether I accept or approve of it.

However, a troubling aspect to me about Bill’s death is the manner he chose to end his life. As a member of the former Hemlock Society – beginning about 30 years ago and then its functional successor, Final Exit Network – I have resisted violent means to end one’s life, in favor of inert gases and, more recently, sodium nitrite.

Both methods require some minimal planning and a bit more knowledge than shooting a gun. Bill knew that I had the knowledge, but perhaps he thought asking me to share it would have compromised me in some way. Or, more likely, he wanted to exercise the autonomy he had long championed.

This is not to suggest that Bill did not have every right to use a gun to end his own life, but one of the problems with using a gun is that it can be an impulsive act. Yet no one I have met who knew Bill can think of a time that he acted impulsively. I doubt that I have met anyone who had thought about the end of life in more exacting terms than he had, nor for as long, given his life-long commitment to philosophy.

A second concern that many of us involved with the right to die on our own terms have is that death by gunshot has sometimes been unsuccessful, leaving the person in a worse state than before. A third concern is that it can leave someone else with the task of cleaning up an unpleasant scene. Finally, the method is not painless, a matter that may be of little concern to someone who expects to be dead quickly.

In an effort to better understand Bill’s decision from a philosophical view, I turned to his favorite philosopher, the Scottish enlightenment philosopher, economist, and historian David Hume. Hume wrote his essay “Of Suicide” to provide a rational analysis of the decision to end one’s life.

While Bill was an atheist, unconcerned with religious proscriptions, Hume argues that suicide is acceptable and rational even for religious people; that is, those who believe in a god.

If it is acceptable to interfere with nature or natural causes to keep oneself from being killed, then it must be acceptable to interfere with nature to end one’s life. Believers can choose to protect themselves and they can choose to end themselves. It is a power that the believers’ Maker has endowed them with – the power to change naturally occurring events.

In the actions of building houses, sailing on the ocean, cultivating crops, damming rivers, avoiding falling boulders, developing vaccines, and ending our own lives, humankind “employ our powers of mind and body to produce some innovation in the course of nature.” They are all actions that are “equally innocent or equally criminal,” in spite of (religious) superstitions to the contrary.

“All animals are entrusted to their own prudence and skill for their conduct in the world, and have full authority as far as their power extends, to alter all the operations of nature.”

For those followers of the Abrahamic religions, Hume argues, “There is not a single text of scripture which prohibits [suicide].” We are left to what Hume calls “our natural liberty.”

He explains his scriptural understanding this way: “Resignation to providence is indeed recommended in scripture; but that implies only submission to ills that are unavoidable, not to such as may be remedied by prudence or courage.” Further, Hume suggests that if an insect can destroy human life, why then should a human be prohibited from destroying the one over which she has authority?

For those who accept no god or “providence,” there is nothing to inhibit their actions except rationality, prudence, courage, and common sense. If suicide is necessary to end a miserable existence, unhappiness, sickness, pain, and sorrow, it is available as a remedy.

If a person has mental capacity, we should respect the autonomy that he exercises when he ends his own life. My grief over the loss of Bill in my life is manageable because of the example of his life – a magnanimous teacher of how to live, both in and out of the classroom.

Hume’s essay “Of Suicide” can be found here.