Chapter VIII: On Piety Toward Oneself and Suicide

Principle. Malice of suicide. Insofar as we have received existence, we are not our own, but in ourselves we must reverence those from whom we draw our origin. Wherefore we offend piety itself by acts by which we violate our nature.

Now our nature is violated by every grave sin, but especially by certain sins by which we misuse nature itself or some substantial part of it. Thus the lustful abuse of one's own body is called by the Apostle a sin against one's own body (1 Cor. 6, 18). But the greatest impiety toward oneself is committed by him who, by directly bringing violence upon himself, at the same time violates the dominion of God and acts against charity toward himself.

The suicide violates the dominion of God. For, while he destroys himself, he directly disposes of himself, or performs an act of perfect dominion. That disposition, in order that it be done honestly, supposes dominion, or a faculty made by the lord. But dominion is not ours, but God's. Cf. 2, 2, q. 64, art. 5, c. Moreover no faculty is shown to have been made by any trial, any misery, or any temptation of this life, since all these bear another and better interpretation. And in very truth, it pertains to man's essential dependence that man accommodate himself to the trials such as God, through circumstances, requires of him, and that in them he show himself patient and faithful. But he who brings violence upon himself violates that essential order of dependence under God, since he intends to change the generic character of his probation, and, by taking life away from himself, removes the fundamental condition of every service.

He violates charity toward himself. For he who loves himself wishes to be, which is the fundamental good without which no good can be conceived. But the suicide, as such, wishes not to be. Nor object that nothing directly against the life of the soul is attempted. For the soul is not the whole man; but suicide denotes the destruction of a man perpetrated by man.

This is confirmed by the fact that the suicide acts against natural inclination, which manifests to us the divine order, since every thing preserves itself in being as much as it can. St. Thomas, l. c.

The suicide also radically refuses to perfect himself, since he violently departs from the state of probation; and he denies all the offices which society can exact from him from legal justice. Wherefore he is unjust also to the community itself. Cf. St. Thomas, l. c.

This reasoning also holds concerning suicide by starvation. For this is not endured without a positive will by which every instinct of seeking necessary foods is violently repressed. And the fundamental law by which we are commanded to act on account of our good at the same time imposes upon us the action which is necessary for that good.

Active permission of death. It is one thing directly to kill oneself; it is another actively to permit one's own death by performing, on account of a proportionate cause, an action with which the probable or even most certain danger of death is joined. Thus soldiers, with their own death foreseen, can blow up a fortress, or burn or sink a ship, lest the enemy from the captured fortress or ship perceive great utility. The same is not lawful for avoiding one's own servitude, because then one's own death is directly sought.

To indirect, or actively permitted, killing of oneself is also referred the act by which a virgin, fleeing a ravisher, does not indeed stab herself through, but casts herself headlong from a high place; indeed, if violation is imminent, she throws herself down from the highest tower. But that she should rather suffer death than allow herself to be violated, on account of the danger of consent, is a matter even of counsel.

Likewise he merely permits his own death who, in order that others may be allowed to be safe, in the open sea abandons an overly laden boat, or yields a plank to a friend.

It is lawful also for a guilty man not to flee; indeed, to liberate others, to preserve the weak in good, to confirm them in the faith, it is right for him to offer himself to a tyrant, and, with the latter's sin, to permit his own killing.

Can a guilty man obey a Prince or judge by whom he is commanded to kill himself by poison, noose, or sword? That matter is controverted. Most deny that it is lawful, e.g. Lessius, L. 2, c. 9, n. 25; Lugo, Iust. et Iur., d. 10, n. 11, because justice is toward another; some, as Vasquez, in 1, 2, d. 173, c. 3, at least when there is question of drinking poison, or of a less cruel death, seem to affirm it, because someone can bear a double person: that of executioner and of guilty man; nor is the relation of reverence and service toward oneself the same as toward a father. St. Alphonsus, L. 3, n. 369, Lehmkuhl, I, 733, and Palmieri, II, n. 862, note, hold this as probable. But it seems that it must be said thus: public power can never command the killing of oneself, because that cruelty toward oneself is required by no common good; and he who kills himself, as such, excludes himself from society and consequently does not cooperate with its good. But public power can command only social cooperation. Moreover, what it does not have power to command, here it cannot even permit, because permission concerning the death of a harmful man would take away the character of public vengeance and would attempt to render an intrinsically evil action lawful. For to permit a guilty man to kill himself is to give him the option of suicide or of execution.

Therefore God alone can refer that disorder to a higher end, and thus concede to someone that he take life away from himself.

What if you are commanded to drink poison already prepared? The drinking of poison denotes little more killing than a lethal blow or hanging does. He who drinks poison only immediately gives place to the specific action of the poison, almost as he who submits his neck to a noose or sword prepares the action of the executioner. Wherefore, in the presence of a killer prepared to compel, these three things, for forestalling violent inflictions otherwise inevitable, seem lawful.

From a sought danger of death it is not lawful to procure for oneself common utility, and much less gain. Wherefore rope-dancers sin who with great danger attempt certain things which, on account of the very danger, are received with applause; those also sin who test dangerous medicines, useless to themselves, upon themselves.

But if, independent of the danger, a sufficient utility is present in a dangerous attempt, or in the refusal of such food, e.g. of heretics, the action becomes honest and sometimes will be commendable. Thus he is praised who, with great danger to himself, casts himself headlong into a river to save the life of another who is in danger; thus those were not condemned who began to navigate in the air not without great danger.

On mutilation. Nor do we have dominion over a part of our person or our own body, which we have denied to be ours over the whole. Wherefore direct mutilation is intrinsically illicit. But mutilation is properly had when by cutting off some organic function or some use of members is suppressed. Therefore castration is mutilation, but circumcision is not, nor some accommodation of the body in a manner which is commonly judged to contribute to beauty: as if there is a custom of removing a certain extremity of the nose or ear. And light matter also is given, as if someone uselessly removes from himself one or another tooth.

Nevertheless direct mutilation will be lawful for saving the whole body or human life, because a part says order to the whole. Wherefore it is lawful to amputate a member lest the whole body be infected; it is lawful for someone to amputate his own arm by which he is bound to a chain, in order to flee a fire. The same seems to have to be permitted if the connection is extrinsic, for example that someone free himself from harsh servitude, that someone redeem death intended for him unless he make himself maimed in hand. For the same reason they admit that a virgin may disfigure her own face lest she be violated.

No one can tolerate castration for preserving chastity or conquering temptations, because that remedy is not necessary for that end and is often unfit. But if a man could be freed by a similar operation from an unusual and morbid force of concupiscence, we would judge that the operation, with another better way excluded, could then be done honestly. Wherefore, if in very truth by vasectomy someone is going to arrive at a just temperament, it seems to us that he can consent to the operation ¹. But it is utterly to be disapproved that public power impose an operation of this kind upon harmless men but weak in body or dull of mind, lest the less strong or those less strong in mind be propagated.

Female castration also is altogether to be condemned when performed for this end, that afterward the conjugal life may be exercised without danger of a harmful pregnancy.

Nor does the practice which once existed of castrating consenting boys seem to be praised or approved, that they might preserve a boyish voice and thus be able to take part in a singing profitable to themselves and not useless to the Church. For that is not necessary to the Church, since true adolescents can fulfill those parts in mixed choirs; but for men there are other profitable arts at hand. And how can boys give valid assent to an irreparable mutilation whose force escapes them? Yet because there is question of preserving the voice, St. Alphonsus, L. 3, n. 371, judged the more benign opinion not improbable.

¹ Observe that we speak merely conditionally, and pronounce nothing concerning the truth of the condition. For there is no lack of one who thinks that rather the opposite effect is to be expected from this "operation, which leaves the interior secretion untouched."

Care of health. We are forbidden directly to harm health itself, and we must preserve life safe by ordinary means. It is not doubted that parvity of matter can be had here. Wherefore:

1. Excesses in food and drink by which health is indeed injured, but not proximately and notably, even if they are grave against temperance, are not gravely opposed to piety or charity toward oneself.

The insane appetites for morphine, opium smoke (in China), cannabis smoke (in Africa among barbarians and Mohammedans), and, more recently, after the war, the taking of cocaine, which are so harmful to health that they prepare public calamities, are to be reproved with a much more severe note. Wherefore not a few laws have deservedly prohibited, by severe sanctions, either the abuse of opium, or hemp, or the sale of cocaine without a physician's order. Individual uses will not be able to be condemned of grave sin, but already in the individual cases there is had the danger of grave abuse and of a habit which will scarcely be able to be conquered. By diffusing, also and especially among adolescents and youths, the contrary spirit of mortification, these sensualities will best be forestalled.

2. It is lawful, yet not from the intention of shortening life, to exercise a useful art which is harmful to health. But if another way of making the things is available, this must be employed.

3. Because exterior penances have the immediate utility of taming the passions more, and thence, on account of several spiritual ends, both one's own and others', are holily employed, it is lawful to wear down the body by vigils and penances, even if some shortening of life and remote loss follows from this. And similarly, on account of an immediately useful effect, in vehement temptation it will be lawful to inflict a wound upon oneself from which blood may burst forth, provided the injury is reasonable and, with attention to the temptation, expedient. Yet it is wicked to use those chastisements which render someone unequal to fulfilling his office, or which notably or not remotely accelerate death. Indeed immoderate penances and abstinences can excite the body and increase temptations. And a prudent director will prevent also every bodily vexation which becomes suspect of someone's "Masochism" or painful lubricity.

4. For avoiding death no one is compelled to use costly and exquisite medicine, or, with domicile left behind, to seek healthier air outside the fatherland, or to conserve life by extraordinary and too hard means, e.g. the cutting off of a leg. Indeed they excuse the virgin who flees the hand of a physician or surgeon more than death. Yet it seems better to form such persons to reasonable command of themselves, lest they be struck down by terrors of this kind. - A father or Superior can command a less grave operation to be undergone.

5. A healthy Carthusian who lacks other foods, lest he perish from hunger, can and must take meats; but they probably permit that a sick Carthusian, with extreme danger of life, preserve his abstinence. For here they say there intervenes the reason of the common good, i.e. the strength of religious discipline; which reason is lacking in the rarer case of accidental need. To this add that life is connected by a much more certain bond with the only food which is at hand for a healthy man than with such quality of food as a sick man may take.

You ask what must be said concerning the use of hypnotic suggestion.

Whether a special sleep is admitted, or whether it is denied to exist, the hypnotic state designates the condition of a person who shows himself very docile to another's commands, to execute hypnotic suggestions either then or afterward. Is his obedience altogether blind and absolute, so that he is ready to do all things? This today is rather denied; but they say there are certain things from which the mind of a hypnotized person too much recoils for him to wish to perpetrate them; indeed they add that several ridiculous things, or even things bloody in appearance, are not obtained except because the hypnotized person is more or less conscious of the fiction. Very many persons, of both sexes, can be placed in that state; yet some more easily and more profoundly than others, so that there are those who, affected by nervous disease, narrate or do things which in very truth can move admiration. Finally, even outside that state, unless it has been done honestly and prudently, hypnotized persons remain under a servile dependence, as they say, on him who hypnotized them.

Concerning these phenomena a threefold question is raised: 1. concerning the moral imputation of actions which happen in the hypnotic state; and we previously denied that those actions are morally imputable in themselves, at least as to grave guilt. - 2. concerning the honesty of the consent by which a person allows himself to be cast into the hypnotic state. And because it is unlawful rashly to abdicate one's liberty into another's hands, because hypnotic usages can harm health not a little and easily disturb the phantasy and mind, such consent is not honestly given without a grave cause and due precautions. And, as much as can be done, care must be taken that liberty remain substantially intact, and that no enduring power over the person be permitted to the hypnotizer ¹. With due precautions, sufficient reason will be given by a bodily or mental illness to be cured, excessive passions to be moderated, and also scientific studies judged useful by those truly skilled.

Without these precautions, the one consenting derogates from charity toward himself; but he who "hypnotizes" a non-consenting person, as one who harms his health, is proved to have violated the fifth precept.

Wherefore, by laws such as the Belgian law of May 30, 1892, exhibitions of "hypnotized" persons are prudently punished, and also the very use of hypnotism upon the insane or minors when performed by those who are not physicians or have not obtained a special license of the government.

¹ This difference exists between the sleep of a hypnotized person, whether it be called special or be held as merely common, and drunkenness: that, after awaking, he immediately becomes master of himself, while the drunken man of himself remains stupid or dull until he has digested the intoxicating drink.

Canonical sanctions. From c. 985, 5: "Those who mutilated themselves or others or attempted to take life away from themselves are irregular from delict"; - from c. 1240: "they are deprived of ecclesiastical burial unless before death they have given some signs of penitence... 3. Those who killed themselves by deliberate counsel"; - from c. 2350, § 2: Those who laid hands upon themselves, if death did not follow, "are to be barred from legitimate ecclesiastical acts and, if they are clerics, are to be suspended for a time to be determined by the Ordinary, and are to be removed from benefices or offices having the care of souls annexed in the internal or external forum."

N.B. Concerning the obligation of working, it was said in the first part, I, 488.

1. Because in ourselves we must reverence those from whom we draw our origin, we violate piety itself by acts by which we violate our nature: which happens in every grave sin, especially by the lustful abuse of one's own body. But the greatest impiety is committed by suicide.

2. For directly bringing violence upon oneself is to act against love toward oneself, since, as far as in oneself lies, one denies to oneself the fundamental good of life and further perfection, while one violently departs from the state of probation; besides, by taking life away from oneself, one removes the fundamental condition of every service, and thus practically casts aside the essential dependence of the creature under God; one contemns the divine order manifested by the inclination implanted in every creature toward being; and one radically denies the offices owed to human society itself. This also holds concerning death sought by starvation.

3. Nevertheless it is lawful, on account of a proportionate cause, actively to permit one's own death by an action with which the probable or even most certain danger of death is joined. This is lawful for the soldier who sinks a ship useful to the enemy, in which he is being carried, lest it be captured; for a virgin who leaves a very high tower lest she be violated; for him who in shipwreck yields boats to others. It is lawful for a guilty man not to flee; nevertheless he does not seem, even when public power commands it, to be able to kill himself.

4. Nor is it lawful to seek private or common utility from the very danger of death as such; but if in an attempt positively dangerous, or in the refusal of such food, e.g. of heretics, there is present, independent of the danger, a utility of sufficient moment, the thing becomes honest and will sometimes be commendable.

5. Direct mutilation also is intrinsically illicit, unless it is done for defending the whole body or for saving life.

6. We are forbidden directly to harm health; wherefore excesses in food and drink are to be blamed at least venially; but to exercise a useful art necessarily harmful to health is not prohibited of itself. By a similar, indeed by a superior, reason of utility, exterior penances by which no necessary good is impeded are made honest.

The excessive desires for morphine, opium smoke, cannabis, and cocaine are more gravely to be blamed and seasonably restrained, since they prepare or induce not a few private and public evils.

7. We must preserve life by ordinary, not extraordinary, means.

8. The office of at once guarding one's own liberty and health forbids anyone, without sufficient reason, e.g. of curing disease or of truly scientific study, and without due precautions by which, e.g., enduring alien rule may be avoided, to allow himself to be cast into a hypnotic state. And otherwise the one hypnotizing would violate the fifth precept.

9. By ecclesiastical penalties, c. 985, 5; 1240; 2350, § 2, the act and attempt of suicide are punished.