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I decided to e-mail Shelly Kagan about his lecture on suicide which you guys can watch here: Here is how the e-mail exchange went: ____________________________ Hello, after viewing your lecture on suicide on YouTube, I have the following question. Suppose I take a libertarian view of self ownership, that you own your self, or your own life? So therefore, you can treat your self like you do any other possession. Suppose I decide I don't like my laptop computer any more and I decide to throw it away. Nobody is going to force me to keep my laptop, or fix it right? Nobody is going to tell me that deciding that my laptop is shit, is an irrational decision. Everybody is pretty much going to say that if I think my laptop is bad, that's my decision to make. Likewise, in the case of your own life, you own it. If you decide it's bad and you want to end it, why do other people have the right to, not only tell you that you aren't allowed to end it, but will label you as "crazy" and have the police come and force you to not end it? Also, if people are allowed to make life decisions for you in terms of whether you can decide to end your life or not, why can't they make other life decisions as well? For example, why can't they decide BY FORCE, that you aren't allowed to become a Yale philosophy professor and that instead, you have to become a Java programmer, whether you want to be a Java programmer or not? Or that you are not allowed to marry Mary (if Mary isn't your wife or significant other, replace her with whoever is your SO) but instead, you must marry Shirly Greene, who lives in Delphos Ohio? That in fact, you MUST marry Shirly Greene even if you are gay? __________________________ His reply: __________________________ Dear Brian, Thanks for writing, let me try to say a few things quickly, though they are of course complicated matters. First, we need to distinguish between the question of whether a given person, P, has an obligation to do something, X, and the question of whether others may permissibly FORCE P to do X. I might well be morally required to call my mother on her birthday, yet it might well be the case that others simply may not permissibly force me to do so. Despite the logical distinction, it COULD be true, as a matter of substantive moral theory, that whenever P is required to do X, others are permitted to force P to do it (others are always permitted to play moral police, as it were), and whenever P is NOT required to do X, others are FORBIDDEN to force P to do it (others are only permitted to enforce moral obligations). I can't take the space here to explore this issue, but the example of the call to Mom suggests to me that at the very least, it just isn't true that if P has an obligation, others may permissibly enforce it. And that means, we can't infer, from the fact that others may not permissibly force you to do something, that you don't have an obligation to do it. And so, even if I were to agree with you that others may not permissibly STOP you from committing suicide, we couldn't infer anything about whether or not you are permitted to kill yourself. Maybe you are wrong to do so, but others are also wrong to stop you. So let us simply ask: is it true that you are morally permitted to do whatever you want to with your life (provided you don't harm others, let's suppose)? Well, you say, that IS true, because your life is your property, and one is free to do whatever one wants with one's property (provided...) But I am afraid I don't think either half of this argument is obvious. On the one hand I don't think it is straightforward that one's life is one's own property, and on the other hand I don't think it is straightforward that one may do whatever one wants with one's own property. Of course, you say, you didn't ask whether this view is right, you just said, SUPPOSE we take the libertarian view as given here. Well yes, IF one takes that view as given, then the ultra liberal view about suicide you describe is likely to follow. But I must say this starting view strikes me as rather implausible. If I pass a child starving, and I simply decide to throw away my sandwich --which I certainly don't want for myself-- rather than give it to the starving child, that seems to me to be a completely morally unacceptable act. But to pursue this question further would be to require a lengthy discussion of rights more generally, property, and more. And that isn't something that can be done in a brief email. Yours, Shelly Kagan _____________________ My reply: ______________________ "Well yes, IF one takes that view as given, then the ultra liberal view about suicide you describe is likely to follow. But I must say this starting view strikes me as rather implausible. If I pass a child starving, and I simply decide to throw away my sandwich --which I certainly don't want for myself-- rather than give it to the starving child, that seems to me to be a completely morally unacceptable act." Ok, but it might not be legitimate to force you to give the sandwich to the child, as you mentioned earlier. Of course, others are free to see you act that way and think "Man, that guy's a jerk." and decide not to associate with you further. However, I see a problem with this view as it relates to suicide. I could for example, give a sandwich I don't want to a starving child. I can't however, effectively give my life to someone else. I suppose I could go to a hospital and tell them to kill me painlessly so that they could harvest my organs thereby saving several people. If I were to tell the hospital to transplant my organs right after I die so that several other people could live, would you consider this a morally appropriate way to commit suicide? Also, what if after years, a person discusses the issue of suicide with many people, and even goes to psychological therapy and even after decades of thought, decides he still wants to commit suicide? Does he then have the right to do so and if not, why not? ________________________ What do you guys think?

Seems to me that if I wanted this much mental masturbation, I would get better results thinking about hot Japanese lesbian high school students. Ok, I have read some of the stuff on this thread and I think you guys are missing the whole problem with James here. So James, you claim that physics proves the existence of an Omega Consciousness called God that has the following properties. 1) He knows everything that is logically possible to know. 2) He can do anything logically possible. 3) He is eternal and unchanging. Ignoring for the moment that there is a contradiction between a being that can do something, yet is at the same time unchanging, the real BASIC question I have for you is as follows: Q) How do you know that this Omega Consciousness is the God described by Christianity? The guys on this thread are missing the point arguing over the multiplication of fish. After all, a "God" could have Star Trek like technology and maybe he beamed the extra fish and bread in with a transporter. Or maybe he pulled them out of a parallel universe. The REAL problems with your view that he's the god described by Christianity, in my view, are as follows. 1) Why would the Omega Consciousness have a place like "heaven" where we go if we believe in him? Or a place like "hell" if we don't believe in him or disobey his rules? 2) Why would the Omega Consciousness care about whether I obey certain things? Like for example, not eating pork or shellfish? I understand that such things might carry disease, but what about cooking them properly? Or why does he care whether or not I have gay sex? 3) If his message to mankind is important, why is he relying on an old book that has been unreliably translated numerous times and has been reinterpreted in thousands of different ways. For example, a) Regarding the gay sex issue, some people think the Bible clearly condemns gay sex whereas other people think those passages only refer to non-consensual sex, or temple prostitution. b) Some people believe that all you have to do to be saved is believe in Jesus. Others say that believing isn't enough and that you need works. Others believe you need faith plus the sacraments. You would think if his message to mankind was so important, it would be pretty clear where he stands on these issues. 4) Why would the Omega Consciousness create one set of rules for ancient people to follow (i.e. the Old Testament) and then decide to create a new set of rules (i.e. the New Testament)? Can't he get it right the first time? 5) Assuming we follow the right rules and we get to go to heaven, what will we do there that won't get boring after doing it for hundreds or thousands of years? It seems that a being that knows everything and can do everything would consider the "Christian religion" too stupid to be worth his time.

My question would be, why should these students have to take physics in the first place? It's obvious that they aren't interested in the subject. I for example, know what a vector is, but only because I have studied mathematics (I have never studied physics). I know what it is, because I am interested in mathematics. I certainly don't need to know what a vector is in order to do my job as an English teacher in China. If someone isn't interested in something you basically have two options. 1) Don't waste your time and energy teaching the subject to that person. 2) Explain in a convincing way why the person should be interested in the subject. If you don't do 1 or 2, you get the passive-aggressive kinds of behaviour evidenced in the above e-mail exchange. The result is, the students will learn just barely enough to pass the test (or fail it if they think they can afford to). Then they will forget all about what was taught in the course as soon as it's no longer part of their lives. In other words, about 3 weeks or less after the course is finished.

There are examples of where courts rule that a contract is not legally binding. I would consider an "eternal" clause in a contract as an "impossible act".See:http://www.floridabar.org/tfb/TFBConsum.nsf/0a92a6dc28e76ae58525700a005d0d53/6a653200b74c8a2085257405007a3ac3!OpenDocument

The mother recently posted this on her facebook.

I would think about whether your vow was really rational. For example, I am now 49 years old. I could make a vow that I will continue to teach at the university I am teaching at for the next 100 years. Since that would mean that I would still be around at 149, it's pretty unlikely I would be able to keep such a vow. So, a vow like that would be pretty irrational. On the other hand, I could vow to donate $20 to FDR if I download 4 more podcasts. That kind of vow would be a lot more reasonable. I don't know specifically what wedding vow you make, but I am guessing it was a "forever" kind of vow. If a 100 year vow isn't rational, then how can a "forever" vow be rational? I don't think that you should hold yourself responsible for upholding an irrational vow regardless of how rational you felt it was at the time you made it.

It seemed like it was the best I could do at the time. Since a relationship requires communication, then not communicating means there can't be a relationship. If she isn't communicating with me then that indicates that she doesn't want to have a relationship. So I felt I was left with something like "Since you aren't communicating, let's just go ahead and make things easier and admit that you don't want a relationship."A few problems with this action though.1) Since I did in fact want to have a daughter at the time I was with her mother, I am partly responsible for her existence.2) Much of her non-communication might not be her fault. Could be caused bya) Her mother making any communication medium difficult to access or use.b) She might be too young to understand the consequences of her actions.I am simply acknowledging that I can not think of a more rational response to this situation. I am also admitting that nobody else so far is capable of giving me a more rational response (only advice I got is "hire a lawyer" which seems to be both expensive, and it violates the non-aggression principle).

dsayers,Was it a really jerk move to say something like "Well since it takes you so long to respond how about I make your life easier? How about not responding at all." ?? I'm saying this because for example, it took until May of the next year to find out if she got the Christmas presents I sent her. I admit that I was a bit late sending them, as in, about maybe 5 days late. Maybe they were thinking that if I can be late, they can be late too? And that a day in my time equals a month in their time?

dsayers, Other than the idea of "I am the biological father therefore she should know me." I don't see a compelling reason logically to have a relationship with her. It bothers me enough that I have asked a ton of people over the years what I should do about it. Should I instead, look into why it is bothering me?

In 2001, when I thought I was gainfully employed as a computer programmer, I fell in love with a woman. Things escalated quickly and I ended up having a child with her. However, the relationship didn't work out (I admit some of the blame for this) and she left me to live with her family. Soon afterwards, I got laid off and had difficulty finding a job. Because of that, I moved to South Korea to teach English. Every year, or few years, I would get a message from the woman. In about 2004, she requested some money to pay a phone bill, but since I don't have any interaction with my daughter I decided to refuse. I also ordered a paternity test at the time which she never sent in. In 2009, she contacted me out of the blue telling me that my daughter wrote me a letter and wanted my address. I was suspicious as to why this would happen after a few years. So it took me a few weeks to finally decide to give her my address. But then she claims that she lost the letter because she moved and had my daughter write another letter. It was at this time I decided that on condition of dealing with her further, that she actually return a paternity test. So she did, and the paternity test came out positive. It was at this point I decided to send her $150/month on a regular basis. I was able to make phone calls to my daughter until September of 2010 when the phone number I was given didn't work anymore because she didn't pay the bill. I sent her a Christmas present in December. In January of 2011, I sent her a letter that got returned. She did not respond to any attempts at communication so in May of 2011 I decided to stop sending her $150/month. It was at that time she decided to give me an e-mail address where I could e-mail my daughter. However, because I got the same usual unresponsiveness after that, I decided to say that since it is difficult for her to respond to messages or send me messages I'll make her life easier by telling her not to send messages to me at all. I can't think of a good ethical solution for this because there are two conflicting principles 1) As a father I should have a relationship with my daughter 2) Forcing her to have a relationship with me would violate the non-aggression principle. Any thoungts?