What if a friend asks me to assist their suicide?

Abstract

There has been plenty of philosophical discussion about the morality and/or rationality of suicide and physician-assisted suicide. There has also been plenty of discussion about non-prosecution policies (such as the British DPP 2010 Guidance) as a legal response to cases of one friend assisting the suicide of another. There has been much less attention paid to the particular conversations that might follow the request for suicidal assistance, and to the particular kinds of moral complexity involved. I will consider a 'Subject', who wants to commit suicide, but lacks the means or the information to do so, and therefore asks his 'Friend' for assistance. (Importantly, the Friend is not a physician.) Without aiming for anything comprehensive or theoretical, I sketch three 'easier' cases and two 'harder' cases, in order to explore the sorts of things that might be said, and thought, by each party, based on the different sources of meaning and morality.