Given the possibility of coercion, it should be at least very heavily regulated.
(But how involved can such a procedure be that you’d need to hire someone on a contract basis? In a sane society you’d petition for barbituates, be investigated to ensure you aren’t being coerced, and receive them. I’d hate to live in a world where I couldn’t even afford my own suicide.)
But how involved can such a procedure be that you’d need to hire someone on a contract basis?
You might be too disabled to to perform your own suicide. Reliable and safe suicide can be hard to do, see Sister Y’s blog for more discussion of this. Even if you make it so the state is the one acquiring the service on behalf of the patient, someone will have as part of his contract assisting suicides.
(But how involved can such a procedure be that you’d need to hire someone on a contract basis? In a sane society you’d petition for barbituates, be investigated to ensure you aren’t being coerced, and receive them. I’d hate to live in a world where I couldn’t even afford my own suicide.)
In Rome, suicide was never a general offense in law, though the whole approach to the question was essentially pragmatic. This is illustrated by the example given by Titus Livy of the colony of Massalia (the present day Marseilles), where those who wanted to kill themselves merely applied to the Senate, and if their reasons were judged sound they were then given hemlock free of charge. It was specifically forbidden in three cases: those accused of capital crimes, soldiers and slaves. The reason behind all three was the same—it was uneconomic for these people to die. If the accused killed themselves prior to trial and conviction then the state lost the right to seize their property, a loophole that was only closed by Domitian in the 1st century AD, who decreed that those who died prior to trial were without legal heirs. The suicide of a soldier was treated on the same basis as desertion. If a slave killed himself or herself within six months of purchase, the master could claim a full refund from the former owner.
I find it amusing to note that despite us having the benefit of hindsight in the form of quite a bit of information about their civilization and the advantage of great advances made in the sciences since then, ancient Romans where still saner on some things than we are.
Also Robin Hanson might want to review his ancient Roman law for insight into how a future of competing emulated human minds might look like. If I bought an em that chaotically self-destructs in less than six months of subjective time I would very much like a refund too.
Given the possibility of coercion, it should be at least very heavily regulated.
(But how involved can such a procedure be that you’d need to hire someone on a contract basis? In a sane society you’d petition for barbituates, be investigated to ensure you aren’t being coerced, and receive them. I’d hate to live in a world where I couldn’t even afford my own suicide.)
You might be too disabled to to perform your own suicide. Reliable and safe suicide can be hard to do, see Sister Y’s blog for more discussion of this. Even if you make it so the state is the one acquiring the service on behalf of the patient, someone will have as part of his contract assisting suicides.
At this point I would like to quote:
I find it amusing to note that despite us having the benefit of hindsight in the form of quite a bit of information about their civilization and the advantage of great advances made in the sciences since then, ancient Romans where still saner on some things than we are.
Also Robin Hanson might want to review his ancient Roman law for insight into how a future of competing emulated human minds might look like. If I bought an em that chaotically self-destructs in less than six months of subjective time I would very much like a refund too.
Wouldn’t it be more surprising if we were saner than some society in every single respect? But yes.