Citation

Lombardi JL. Ethics 1984; 95(1): 56-67.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

11651786

Abstract

Lombardi critiques the theistic argument of Baruch Brody concerning the relevance of divine commands to the moral evaluation of suicide. He contends that the religious considerations which Brody introduces fail to justify the alleged differences between his secular and religious evaluations of suicide. In particular, Lombardi suggests, any plausible principle for generating the altruistic exceptions to the prohibition of suicide allowed by Brody's religious argument seems inevitably to generate self-interested exceptions of the sort the religious rationale was designed to preclude. Furthermore, other considerations that might strengthen the religious case prove useless to those religious moralists who wish to prohibit suicide but grant that it is sometimes divinely permissible to let a person die.

Language: en