Hellenismus: T:\Kasper\Helle\1-Fahne\helle07HK.indd, Haus-Korr.

, BS/CK

JON MILLER
Stoics and Spinoza on suicide
Selfe-homicide is not so naturally Sinne, that it may neuer be otherwise.
John Donne1

Let me get intuitions flowing with discussion of some general issues pertaining to suicide. To begin with, there is the problem of determining what
suicide is. In his influential study, Emile Durkheim argues that the term
suicide is best applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly
from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will
produce this result.2 As Durkheim acknowledges, this is a broad definition,
combining actions which intuitively count as suicides (such as the businessman who throws himself on the tracks to escape bankruptcy) with those
that dont (such as the martyr dying for her faith or the mother sacrificing
herself for her child). Durkheim is not bothered by this breadth, which results primarily from his refusal to tie suicide to the agents intention or reason for action. He is suspicious of intentions or reasons for action, because
they are hidden from an external observer and sociology as a science must
be based on observations3. Most philosophers, however, adopt a less observational stance than Durkheim, since they are primarily concerned with the
morality of suicide. Because of their interest in its morality, they usually incorporate intentions into their conceptions of suicide. John Cooper reflects
this tendency when he attributes to ancient philosophers the view that suicide is a persons death both intended by him and brought about by some
action of his own that was aimed, at least proximately, at bringing it about
(or, of course, the person who brings about his death in this way).4 While
definitions or conceptions of suicide that emphasize agents intentions may
narrow Durkheims definition in fruitful ways, they face problems of their
own. Do all cases of intentional self-killing count as suicide, or only those
in which the agents primary intention is to kill herself? After all, Socrates
in some sense intended to die when he drank the hemlock. Did he commit

1 The sentence is taken from the sub-title of his Biathanatos, completed in 1608 and
posthumously published in 1647.
2 For the purposes of this paper, I am using the English translation found in Durkheim
(1951), p. 44.
3 Durkheim (1951), p. 42 3.
4 Cooper (1989), p. 516.

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suicide, then, even though he was in some sense forced to the action by the
unjust verdict of the state and his primary intention was to show obeisance
to the law?5
Some of the uncertainty and general difficulty surrounding suicide is reflected in the ways various languages have attempted to express it. According to the linguist David Daube, languages have a problem even finding a
word for suicide. Daube writes, no language known to me has a genuinely
separate word for suicide, a word neither a composition nor receiving the
sense from an added specification The words denoting it are always
qualifications of others, mostly either of to die or to kill. Suicide, that is,
is exhibited as a dying or a killing with a twist.6 The indirectness of the various words or expressions that have been used to speak of suicide autocheiri
thneisko, mors voluntaria, Selbstmord, Donnes selfe-homicide indicates
the crux of the problem. Other kinds of dying or killing are ordinary and
so we have words for them. Like patricide or infanticide, however, suicide
is not an ordinary kind of killing and so we must create a special word or
phrase for it7. In addition, even after words were discovered or created for
suicide, prejudicial attitudes blocked or at least frustrated the adoption of
these words. Alexander Murray reports that the word suicide (suicida) appeared in a manuscript in the twelfth century8. Nevertheless, despite the
words early appearance in at least one manuscript, it did not enjoy wide
usage until the seventeenth century, with the publication of Sir Thomas
Brownes Religio Medici in 1637. Murray argues that one of the key reasons
why suicide, unlike other twelfth-century neologisms such as theology
and individual, did not catch is that suicide was different Suicide was
just too terrible to talk about. So long as you were content with words that
did not quite hit the nail on the head, there were already too many words
5 For further and more detailed discussion of definitional problems pertaining to suicide,
see Margaret Pabst Battin (1995), p. 20 ff.
6 Daube (1972), p. 390.
7 Daube (1972), p. 391 ff.
8 The manuscript, called De quatuor labyrinthos Franciae, is a polemical attack on Peter Abelard and three other contemporaries by the Paris Augustinian canon Walter
of St. Victor. In this particular passage, he is taking issue with Senecas defense of the
appropriateness of suicide in certain circumstances. He writes, in summa luxuria effeminatam animam ac si dormiendo evomuit. Miro scilicet ingenio, ipsam mortem mortisque dolorem vertit sibi in magnam voluptatem. Iste igitur non quidem fratricida, set
peior suicida, Stoicus professione. Epicureus morte. Putasne cum Nerone et Socrate et
Catone suicidis receptus sit Celo? Crede mihi melius illi erat si natus non fuisset homo,
malletque semper luxuriari in balneo. (The text is quoted by Murray [1998], p. 38 9,
n. 61).

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

for it, approximate and archaic though they might be. The very last thing
people wanted was an accurate term for the unmentionable thing itself.9
In fact, although opinion about suicide may have been uniformly
condemnatory in the middle ages, it has been more divided over the longer
course of history. One reason for this is that suicide summons up a number
of equally intuitive yet opposing lines of thought. For example, on one
side, there is the feeling that nothing is more our own than our lives and so
nothing should be more up to us to decide what to do with than our lives,
while on the other side there is the sense of the preciousness of life we get
only one to live and so a reluctance to end it artificially or prematurely.
There is also the problem of conflicting obligations: to whom does one owe
the greater duty, to oneself or to something larger than oneself (ones family,
ones state, ones God, etc.)? If ones primary duty is to oneself, then it is
conceivable that in circumstances when life becomes too difficult to bear,
one may have an obligation or at least a right to end ones life. Contrariwise,
if ones primary duty is to ones family, state or God, then it may not matter
what one suffers personally; one may be obliged to bear it all in order to
fulfill ones obligations to others. A third source of tension stems from
different attitudes towards the naturalness of suicide. Is it more natural
to continue life or to end it (say, in order to avoid terrible and permanent
pain)? Given the widespread belief that acts which are opposed to nature are
immoral, whether or not suicide is natural has ramifications for its moral
standing.
The precise expression of these intuitions has varied through time, as has
the support they enjoyed (for example, if Murray is to be believed, intuitions critical of suicide achieved near hegemonic status in the middle ages).
I would argue, however, that all of them resonated in both of the historical
periods covered by this paper. Whatever views Stoics and Spinoza came to
possess about suicide, they did so under pressure from these and other such
intuitions.
Another problem raised by suicide is the relationship between the rational justification of an action and its moral standing. Here, the question is
whether or not rational justification and moral standing are separable properties. An affirmative answer could be given by the utilitarian, for example,
who associates justification with having good or bad reasons and moral
rightness or wrongness with the consequences of actions. To such a person,
someone could have good reasons to kill himself; if he did, his action would
be justified. At the same time, his action might not be moral if it negatively
9 Murray (1998), p. 40.

Jon Miller

affected those around him. A deontologist, on the other hand, might argue
against the utilitarian that it is impossible to conceive of rationally defensible yet immoral actions, because some form of entailment exists between
the two properties (either one implies the other or they mutually imply each
other). As a result, one who commits suicide for good reasons must ipso facto
have committed a moral act. An extreme strand of deontological thought
tightens the relationship between the rationality of actions and their moral
rightness or wrongness. These two properties do not merely stand in an
implication relation to each other; they are actually identical. According to
such a deontologist, then, to say that an action is rational is just to say that
it is moral, and vice versa. The rational suicide (if there is such a thing) is the
moral suicide; and any suicide which is moral is also rational.
I do not intend for these remarks to prove anything or even to isolate all
of the philosophically significant problems raised by suicide. Instead, the
point is to highlight issues or ideas that will be useful to understanding what
Stoics and Spinoza have to say about suicide. As we shall see, much of what
vexes us about suicide was equally troubling to them.
I.

Stoicism and suicide

I start with Stoic axiology or theory of value10. According to this, there are
three kinds of moral value: good, bad and indifferent11. Since the good is
defined as that which benefits or does not other than benefit, and that
which benefits is virtue alone, the true good is virtue and virtue alone12.
Similarly, the not-good or bad is held to be that which does not benefit but
harms, and since that which harms is vice, the only true not-good or bad is
vice13. All other concepts and entities apart from virtue and vice are morally
indifferent: that is, they neither help nor hinder the persons moral char10 The following account of Stoic axiology is a condensed and summarized version of
what has become the standard interpretation; for a more complete even if still introductory discussion, see A. A. Long (1986), p. 184 205.
11 The division of things into good, bad and indifferent is found in numerous sources. See
especially Stobaeus Anthology, 5a.
I should say that since I am only reprising the standard interpretation of Stoic axiology here, I will not provide complete textual references for each point made. Instead, I
will offer a text (or texts) to represent the basic Stoic position on that issue. Many of the
relevant sources appear in L S 58 60 and 64.
12 For a representative text on the Stoic definition of the good, see Sextus Empiricus,
Against the professors, 11.22; L S 60G.
13 For one representative text, see Stobaeus Anthology, 5d.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

acter14. The list of so-called indifferents is long and includes seemingly

disparate items such as life, health, wealth, having an odd or even number
of hairs on ones head, and stretching or contracting a finger15. While all
of these items are, strictly speaking, indifferent to ones moral well-being,
Stoics did grant that some of them (such as life) are more important than
others and so they are to be preferred16. More on preferred indifferents
shortly.
First, let us consider the inspiration for and genesis of Stoic axiology. It
is based on views about the nature of the individual and of the universe as a
whole. Chrysippus reportedly said that [t]here is no other or more appropriate way of approaching the theory of good and bad things or the virtues
or happiness than from universal nature and from the administration of
the world.17 From their study of phusis, Stoics concluded that the inherent
order of the universe is best explained by positing the presence in it of logos.
We humans are unique among animals, in that we share in this rationality.
The rational element of our nature was taken to be the most important part
of us, as Seneca so clearly conveys when he writes: What is best in man?
Reason: with this he precedes the animals and follows the gods. Therefore
perfect reason is mans peculiar good, the rest he shares with animals and
plants...18. As implied by that last sentence, the belief in the importance
of our rationality shaped Stoic views on the end or ultimate objective of
human activity. While specific formulations of the end varied and became
increasingly sophisticated from Zenos first statement of it as living in
agreement to Cleanthes living in agreement with nature before culminating Chrysippus living in accordance with experience of what happens
by nature19, all Stoics seemed to agree that what is best for humans is a life

14 A point made by D. L. 7.101.

15 D. L. 7.104 5.
16 The distinction between non-preferred indifferents and preferred indifferents maps
onto the distinction Stobaeus records in the following passage between things said to
be absolutely indifferent and things which are indifferent to virtue and vice but not
with respect to selection and rejection: some [things] are said to be absolutely indifferent, such as <having an odd or even number of hairs on ones head, or> extending
ones finger this way or that way, or to picking off some annoying object, such as a twig
or a leaf. In the [other] sense one must say that... what is between virtue and vice is
indifferent, but not [indifferent] with respect to selection and rejection; and that is why
some have selective value, and some have rejective disvalue, but make no contribution
at all to the happy life. (Anthology, 2.7; I G p. 213).
17 Plutarch, On Stoic self-contradictions, 1035C; L S 60A1.
18 Letter 76.9; L S 63D1. See also Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II.153.
19 Stobaeus collects all three formulations in his Anthology; see L S 63B.

Jon Miller

in harmony with our nature as rational beings20. This view produces the
axiology outlined above, insofar it leads Stoics to attach moral value only to
those things that matter to our rationality and to denigrate as morally indifferent or worse all other things.
These views on the good and virtue are not meant to be only theoretical;
they have definite prescriptive force. Though perhaps paradoxical in other
respects, Stoics subscribed to the common ancient eudaimonistic view of
the end: Stobaeus tell us that Stoics say that being happy is the end, for the
sake of which everything is done, but which is not itself done for the sake of
anything.21 Certainly Aristotle, for example, would have agreed with this
statement; but he and most other ancient philosophers would have balked
at the next step Stoics take defining happiness in terms of living according to virtue and arguing that virtue, and the smooth flow of life achieved
by one who is virtuous, by themselves guarantee happiness22. I have alluded
to some of the reasons for this controversial move in my references to Stoic
physics and axiology; it is not necessary for present purposes to explore it
further here23. Rather I want to conclude these preliminary remarks by returning to the concept of preferred indifferents.
Recall that preferred indifferents are things such as life, wealth and health
that are not morally good because they do not contribute to happiness24.
Even though they are not morally good, they still have a kind of value
(sometimes called selective value) that is keyed to their contribution to
the so-called natural life. For example, other things being equal, it is better
for a human being to have food than not, because without food he or she
cannot survive. So food has selective value for humans and counts as a preferred indifferent. Now, actions involving preferred indifferents can either
be performed in a manner that suits our constitutions or not that is, they
can either be performed appropriately or inappropriately. If we use preferred indifferents in a manner that is appropriate for our natures, then we
are performing proper functions (kathekonta)25. The standard definition

20 For further discussion of the end, including a forceful argument against taking later
Stoics to have diverged from the early Stoas view of the end as homologoumenos te phusei
zen, see Striker (1986).
21 Anthology, 2.77; L S 63A1.
22 The quotes come from D. L. 7.88; I G p. 191.
23 For texts and commentary, see Brad Inwood (1999b), 680 2 and 684 7.
24 For some arguments supporting the conclusion that indifferents (even preferred indifferents) do not contribute to happiness, see D. L. 7.103 and Sextus Empiricus, Adversus
Mathematicos, 11.61.
25 For one representative text, see Cicero, De Finibus, 3.20.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

of proper functions is something which, once it has been done, has a reasonable justification26 and has been glossed as meaning something which
makes sense in terms of the nature of the animal in question.27 Proper functions are natural and hence reasonable actions; fools and sages alike perform
them. Actions that are morally perfect are also proper functions but are performed by the sage alone, because only he or she has the necessary virtuous
disposition to execute the act properly and with the right intentionality28.
These alone are right actions, strictly speaking. Even though we fools cannot perform right actions, we can perform ordinary proper functions and
it is important that we do so if we wish to make progress toward our end
of happiness or virtue. One of the most important preferred indifferents we
can use appropriately or not is our own life; and one of the decisions we
have to make about our own lives is whether and when to end it ourselves.
In this way suicide can be linked to Stoicisms most basic ethical and metaphysical doctrines.
I have set out this interpretive framework because I think it provides
necessary support for Stoic views on suicide. With it in place we can now
pose the question: according to Stoicism, can suicide be a moral act or, to
use Stoic parlance, a proper function? We now know about the general requirements for the correct moral use of goods such as life: the agent must use
them in ways that admit of reasonable justification, given her or his nature.
Because the nature of the sage differs from that of the fool in certain crucial
respects, how an agent should use indifferents will depend on whether she is
a sage or a fool. Thus, to answer the question can suicide be a moral act?,
we must look separately at the sage and the fool, to see whether it can be a
moral act for each type of person. Lets begin with the sage.
I have suggested that for Stoics, the question of the morality of suicide
hinges largely on the conceptually prior question: can suicide be natural and
hence rational and hence moral? Now, it may seem that if this is the question, the answer is obvious about whether the sage could be acting morally
as she kills herself. For the sage is the ideal human agent, one who always
acts according to nature, i. e., rationally. Since all of the sages actions are
rational or undertaken for the right reasons, if she decides to end her life,
then that act would be eo ipso rational and therefore moral. In fact, all this

26 Stobaeus, Anthology, II.85.13 14 (L S 59B1).

27 Inwood (1999b), p. 697 8.
28 As Stobaeus writes, They [the Stoics] say that some proper functions are perfect, and
that these are also called right actions. The activities which accord with virtue are right
actions, such as acting prudently, and justly (Anthology; L S 59B4).

Jon Miller

is correct. But it is not very instructive, for it does not reveal anything about
what we really want to know about i. e., the circumstances under which
suicide would be rational. It behooves us to examine more fully these very
circumstances in order to clarify further the Stoic position. When, then,
might the wise kill themselves? The when in this question is subject to
two interpretations: one, temporal (at such a time, suicide is rational); the
other, conceptual or logical (when certain conditions obtain, suicide is rational). Understood in this way, how should the question be answered?
Since the sage was an ideal, never realized by any actual person, we cannot point to any real individual who exemplifies sagacious behavior and
learn from him or her how sages act. Nonetheless, Stoics did think that
some real people had progressed further toward the goal of sagacity than
others and they seemed to regard such persons as quasi-sages. From their
discussion of these quasi-sages, we can make some inferences about the
character and behavior of full-blown sages. Now, one of these quasi-sages
was Socrates. Here is some of what Seneca says of Socrates death: Socrates
might have ended his life by fasting; he might have died by starvation rather
than by poison. But instead of this he spent thirty days in prison... in order
that he might show himself submissive to the laws and make his last moments an edification to his friends.29 What can we make of Senecas views
on Socrates death?
First of all, notice that regardless of which conception of suicide we attribute to Seneca, he seems to think of Socrates death as a suicide. If he
accepts the broad Durkheimian formula (i. e., suicide is a death resulting
directly or indirectly from any action of the agent himself, which he knows
will produce this result), then clearly Socrates committed suicide, since he
knew that by refusing to escape from prison (a negative action) he would die.
On the other hand, if Seneca prefers Coopers narrower definition (suicide
is a death both intended by the agent and brought about by his actions),
Socrates still committed suicide, since he died by drinking the poison and
arguably intended to die by this action. So, however suicide is defined, it
seems that Seneca regarded Socrates death as a suicide. This is important,
because we want to learn about Senecas views on the sages reasons for committing suicide. Since Socrates was a quasi-sage and he committed suicide,
we are entitled to draw inferences about a sages rationale for killing himself
from what Seneca says about his death30.

29 Ep. 70.9.
30 Because of complications surrounding both the circumstances of Socrates death and
his action itself, it may not seem obvious that his death was a suicide. But a number

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

According to Seneca, then, why did Socrates commit suicide? His answer: in order that he might show himself submissive to the laws and make
his last moments an edification to his friends. Seneca clearly thinks that
Socrates was motivated by a desire to benefit others. He did not kill himself
as soon as the death sentence was passed but remained alive for another
thirty days, because those thirty days gave him valuable time he could use
to converse with his friends about important philosophical matters. At the
same time, he did not flee or attempt to delay death beyond the arrival of
the ship from Delos but submitted to the laws and died at the appointed
hour. This demonstrated to his friends the importance of the laws and our
duty to follow them, even when we may disagree with them. Thus, there are
at least two ways in which Socrates suicide benefited others: through the
opportunity it presented for additional philosophical conversation and a
display of submission to the laws. This in turn gave him two reasons to kill
himself in the way and at the time when he did.
In addition to the good his suicide might do for others, Seneca hints
that Socrates suicide also benefited himself. It was right to kill himself and
submit to the laws, because he owed an allegiance to the laws and would
have imperiled his soul by violating them. Cicero is even clearer than Seneca
on why a sage might commit suicide, even where his death benefits no one
except his own self:
When a man has a preponderance of the things in accordance with nature, it is his
proper function to remain alive; when he has or foresees a preponderance of their
opposites, it is his proper function to depart from life. is clearly shows that it is
sometimes a proper function both for the wise man to depart from life, although he
is happy...31.

Prima facie, there is something odd about the sage committing suicide for
his own sake. After all, he alone, of all people, is happy; why would he want
to end his life? This oddity, however, should be eliminated by the fact that
the sages happiness is not increased or decreased by the amount of time he
is happy: his happiness is dependent only on his virtue; duration makes no
contribution to his happiness32. As a result, he will not consider his own
longevity when deciding whether remaining alive would benefit himself

of texts besides the one I am discussing confirm that Stoics at least regarded it as such.
Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations I.74, De Officiis 6.15 6; Seneca, De Providentia
2.9 10, Ep. 13.14, 24.4 5, 104.21; Plutarch, Cato 67 8.
31 De Finibus, 3.60; L S 66G1 2.
32 Cf. Cicero De Finibus 3.46, Seneca Ep. 70.4 6, and, for discussion, Cooper (1989),
p. 535 6.

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(though he may consider whether his longevity would benefit others;

Seneca seems to think that Socrates did this). Rather, he will consider the
impact that continued life would have on his rationality. Though a perfectly
rational being, the sage is still a human and so requires food, friendship, etc.
If he is deprived or anticipates being deprived of such necessities, to the extent that it will be difficult or impossible to remain rational, then he might
reasonably choose to preserve his integrity through suicide. Since life itself is
only a non-moral good a preferred indifferent with selective value its
worth cannot be compared to that of ones rationality, the only thing one
possesses with true moral value, and the sage would gladly surrender it for
the sake of his reason.
In general, then, there are two different kinds of reasons for suicide by
sages: either for the sake of others, or for the sake of oneself. The canonical
expression of this idea is by Diogenes Laertius: They [the Stoics] say that
the wise man will commit a well-reasoned suicide both on behalf of his
country and on behalf of his friends, and if he falls victim to unduly severe
pain or mutilation or incurable illness.33
While it is not difficult to imagine situations in which a sage would commit suicide, it should be stressed that the sage would not undertake suicide
lightly. For the sage (much more so than the rest of us) appreciates the true
worth of what is morally good i. e., reason34. This understanding of the
true worth of reason causes him to want to nurture it whenever and wherever possible35. In particular, it is important to sages to help us fools become
wise or, at least, not sink further into our foolishness. This duty the sage has
to respect, preserve and enhance. Reason is practical and has the force of a
strong imperative. Seneca expresses the urgency the sage (and any would-be
wise person) must experience to respect reason when he writes, It is no occasion for jest; you are retained as counsel for unhappy mankind. You have
promised to help those in peril by sea, those in captivity, the sick and the
needy, and those whose heads are under the poised axe. Whither are you
straying? What are you doing?36 Since sages usually cannot help anyone
once they are dead, they will be reluctant to die. The story told of the aged

33 D. L. 7.130; L S 66H. Cf. John Rist (1969), p. 239.

34 Martha Nussbaum (1994) lucidly expounds on the Stoic valuation of reason. See especially p. 324 ff.
35 Cf. Nussbaum (1994): The first and most basic injunction... will be to respect and
cultivate that all-important element [reason] in [oneself ], the foundation of [ones]
humanity. Wherever [one] recognizes this capacity, [one] should honor it; and nothing
else about a person is worthy of much honor (p. 325).
36 Ep. 48.8.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

11

Cleanthes illustrates the point: When someone criticized [Cleanthes] for

his old age, he said, I too want to make my exit. But when I consider everything and see that I am completely healthy and able to write and to read,
I continue to wait.37 Only when it is absolutely necessary only when
reason tells them to do so only then will sages end their lives38.
Turning now to fools, we can construct an inverse argument to the one
we encountered when first asking about the morality of suicide for sages:
namely, if a fool is to commit a morally commendable suicide, then his or
her action would have to be rational; but the fool by definition always acts
foolishly or irrationally; therefore the fool cannot commit a morally defensible suicide. Are things so simple?
In a word: no. For people to act morally, they must perform proper
functions, using indifferent goods. To do this, they must be able to pass
judgment efficiently and correctly on the matters before them. This is not a
problem for sages, because of their superior epistemic abilities. These abilities provide sages with insight into the particulars of their circumstances,
insight which they can use to project the possible available courses of action
and decide which is best. It may turn out that even the sage cannot know
things sufficiently well to determine the correct response; but in that case,
the sage will know that he does not know and so suspend action39. With
respect to suicide, then, the sage will never make the wrong choice out of
ignorance: if his circumstances mandate suicide, then he will kill himself;
if they dont, then he wont; and if they are indeterminate, he will withhold
judgment until such a time that a decisive judgment can be made. Unfortunately for fools, they lack the wisdom of the sage. One consequence of this

37 D. L. 7.174; I G p. 107.
38 The extraordinary value attached to reason by the Stoics, and the extraordinary importance of this valuation to their philosophy, is often overlooked by commentators.
For example, Michael J. Seidler (1983) commits this error in his otherwise estimable
article and it leads him to make several mistakes. To cite a couple: when summing up
the Stoics position, Seidler states that Stoics deny the ultimate value of human life
and that the school was guilty of pervasive elitism (p. 438). Now, quite apart from
the question of whether there is one position on suicide which all Stoics maintain, it is
grossly unfair to Stoics to characterize them as being anything less than radically (for
their time) egalitarian. For very deep philosophical reasons namely, because of their
belief in the rationality of all humans and in the value of that rationality they must
endorse the view that all humans are equal and worthy. Because Seidler does not seem
to recognize the full significance of these points, his comparison of Kant and the Stoics makes them seem farther apart than necessary and casts the Stoics in a gratuitously
unfavorable light.
39 Cf. Cicero, Academica 2.57.

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lack of wisdom or knowledge is that fools cannot be confident of the veracity of their opinions and the appropriateness of their actions. This epistemic
weakness afflicts all fools and can only be eliminated by increasing ones
knowledge to the point of sagacity. But Stoics offer advice on how to cope
in the meantime, until fools achieve sagacity. One way that fools can deal
with this problem is by sticking fast to nature: that is, by following nature
and its plan for humans. Thus Chrysippus says, As long as the future is
uncertain to me I always hold to those things which are better adapted to
obtaining the things in accordance with nature; for god himself has made
me disposed to select these.40 Because nature is providential and designed
for the well-being of humans, by following nature humans are assured of
acting in ways which are best for them.
Now, the epistemic limitations of the fool and the value of following
nature as a solution to these limitations provide the premises for the following Stoic argument on the inappropriateness of suicide for fools. It is
obvious from the design of the human species and all of the goods that
nature provides for human consumption that nature intends for humans to
grow to maturity, become rational, reproduce and perform all sorts of other
actions in short, to live. Because the default position for humans is life,
then since foolish humans dont have enough knowledge to be sure when
death would be appropriate for them, suicide is not allowed. This argument
is recorded by Stobaeus:
ey [the Stoics] say that sometimes suicide is appropriate for virtuous men, in many
ways; but that for base men, [it is appropriate] to remain alive even for those who
would never be wise; for in [their mode of ] living they neither possess virtue nor expel
vice. And [the value of life] and death is measured by [a reckoning of ] appropriate and
inappropriate actions.41

Since the vicious could not know when suicide is appropriate, they ought
to remain alive, since the norm for all animals a natural end for them to
pursue is the preservation of their lives.
It is fairly clear from our sources that this view was shared by most or
all members of the early Stoa42. But it is even clearer that it was not shared
40 Epictetus, Discourses, II.6.9; L S 58J.
41 Anthology, 2.11m; I G p. 229 (the first bracketed insertion is mine, the rest are
I Gs). Cf. also Plutarch, On Stoic self-contradictions 1039E and Cicero, De finibus
3.60.
42 For texts, see note 41. For commentary, see Inwood (1999a). He concludes, suicide is
permissible in early Stoicism, but only when a clear and correct judgement can be made
about ones situation in life. No one but a wise person can do so; so only a wise person
ought to commit suicide (105).

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

13

by members of the late Stoa. In Seneca and Epictetus, for example, we find
a variety of circumstances in which suicide could be appropriate: political
oppression, protracted but not terminal illness, hunger, witnessing strange
phenomena43. Cooper cites a later source, Olympiodorus, as reporting five
situations in which Stoics thought suicide was appropriate: (1) in discharge
of some duty, e. g., to defend ones country; (2) to avoid doing something
disgraceful, e. g., betraying an important secret when pressed by a tyrant to
do so; (3) when beset by mental deterioration in old age or (4) incurable,
debilitating disease; (5) when extreme poverty prevents one from supplying
ones basic needs.44 While Olympiodorus was a neo-Platonist and not a
Stoic, his report is apparently based on standard sources of Stoic ethics and
can be relied on as a source for Stoicism in late antiquity. Seneca, Epictetus
and Olympiodorus; all late Stoics or sources for late Stoicism, and all sympathetic to suicide by fools.
There is a conflict, then, among ancient Stoics over the appropriateness
of suicide by fools: some Stoics (especially in the earlier Stoa) argued that
suicide was never appropriately undertaken by a fool45; other Stoics (especially in the later Stoa) insisted that it was. Because of this conflict, it cannot
be said that there is single ancient Stoic view on suicide: while all Stoics
agreed that sages could act appropriately when they kill themselves, fools
present the harder case and they forced a schism in the school, one that
breaks roughly along chronological lines. What makes this conflict even
more interesting is that it takes place on thoroughly Stoic grounds. Later
Stoics did not question, much less reject, the axiological and epistemic principles which had led their predecessors to argue that fools could not commit
moral suicides. Like their predecessors, Seneca and Epictetus agreed that life
is properly categorized as a preferred indifferent with selective value; they
also agreed that sages cognitive abilities in general, and epistemic prowess
in particular, far exceeded fools. These principles are as firmly embedded in
late Stoicism as they are in early Stoicism, and this gives us one important
reason for regarding late Stoics every bit as Stoical as the early ones. What
has changed is the interpretation of these principles. Whereas early Stoics

43 Cf. Seneca De ira III.15, Ep. 77, etc. and Epictetus Discourses I.9.10 17, III.8.1 6,
III.26.29, etc.
44 Cooper (1989) 534, n. 20. The original text is Commentary on Platos Phaedo I, 8,
19 39, ed. Westerink.
45 There is one exception to this rule: divine intervention. As Rist persuasively argues,
suicide would have been permitted when the gods signaled it (Rist [1969], p. 243).
Apart from this very special circumstance, however, I do not think early Stoics allowed
suicide by fools.

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Jon Miller

argued that the epistemic warrant for suicides by fools is impossibly high,
late Stoics thought that fools could, in the right circumstances, achieve the
degree of justification required for such an action. Like early Stoics, late
Stoics thought that certainty is necessary for suicide; unlike early Stoics, late
Stoics thought such certainty attainable.
Of course, there is a lesson in this and it is with this lesson that I want
to conclude my discussion of Stoics on suicide. The lesson is that one must
be careful to specify which Stoicism one is speaking about when one makes
claims about Stoicism. I do not believe or mean to suggest that the basic underlying principles, arguments and positions varied significantly from one
formulation of Stoicism to the next. If many changes were made to these,
it is debatable whether the resulting system would be Stoic; after all, there
are limitations on the extent of innovation any philosophical system can accommodate, after which the innovator crosses from reform to heterodoxy.
But these parameters allow for much interpretative leeway, especially on
finer points (such as the permissibility of suicide), and it is to be expected
that in philosophical systems with long and rich traditions such as Stoicism, many of these interpretations will have been tried out at some time
or another. The historian must be sensitive to these, especially if she or he is
interested in understanding the history of the school.
In this paper, I have tried to heed this lesson: since I am comparing
Spinozism with Stoicism, my comparison could be greatly affected by which
Stoicism I choose for my comparison. Fortunately for me, the potential for
mischief is diminished by the particular kind of comparison I am undertaking. My overall aim lies in identifying and comparing first principles of the
two systems moral theories. Since Stoics basically agreed on first principles,
it is usually not necessary for me to say which set of principles is being used
to make my comparisons. If I moved down the ladder from first principles
to derived principles, then it might become important to specify whom I
am talking about say, the derived principles of Chrysippus versus Panaetius. On occasion, I shall speak of such derived principles and then I shall
try to be careful to attribute the views in question to actual individuals. In
general, though, since my project is more philosophical than historical it
is more focused on the two philosophical systems themselves than on how
the one influenced the other historical problems such as naming and identifying the idiosyncrasies of various instantiations of Stoicism do not affect
me46.

46 Although my project is intrinsically more historical than his, it bears a relationship

to Becker (1998). While he is constructing an ethical theory for use in contemporary

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

II.

15

Spinoza on suicide

Suicide is mentioned or discussed at least five times in Spinozas corpus: in

Letter 23 and in Ethics IIP49S, IVP18S, IVP20S, and (obliquely) VP41S47.
Of these five, the Letter and IVP20S offer the fullest discussion. In both
places, he defends the thesis that suicide is impossible. I will show how by
examining first the Letter and then IVP20S.
In Letter 23, Spinoza is responding to yet another letter from an increasingly tiresome correspondent (van Blijenbergh) who persists in debating
some ideas that Spinoza thinks have already received sufficient attention.
Toward the end of the Letter Spinoza paraphrases several of his correspondents most recent objections; the last of these paraphrases is the question, If
there was a mind to whose singular nature the pursuit of sensual pleasure
and knavery was not contrary, is there a reason for virtue which should
move it to do good and omit evil?48 To this question which I take it asks
roughly if there were a person for whom baseness is natural, would that
person ever do good? Spinoza responds by arguing that it presupposes
a contradiction. To show why, he employs an argument from analogy; and
here, in this argument from analogy, he talks about suicide. So suicide appears in Letter 23 as part of an argument addressing an entirely different
conceptual problem: in particular, it forms the basis for an argument from
analogy that compares one who, by nature, wishes to commit suicide, to
one who, by nature, is evil.
So much for the context. The actual argument proceeds as follows: his
opponents question, Spinoza states, is like asking, If it agreed better with
the nature of someone to hang himself, would there be reasons why he
should not hang himself? In answer to this question (which is supposed to
be analogous to the original question posed by his correspondent), he grants
the antecedent of the conditional: suppose, he writes, that there should

society and I am attempting to understand two philosophical systems from long ago,
both of us are more interested in the timeless abstract propositions that form the core
of Stoic doctrine. To emphasize the non-historical character of his endeavor, Becker
uses stoic (small s) instead of Stoic (which he associates with the ancient school).
Because I will in fact be speaking of actual historical Stoics, I will not employ his conceit. But to the extent that the historical questions do not matter to the conceptual
comparison I am making, I would have legitimate grounds for doing so.
47 When referring to the Ethics, I will use the abbreviations which have become commonplace. For example, IVP18S stands for Book IV, Proposition 18, Scholium.
48 G IV: 149 50. Unless otherwise noted, all Spinoza translations are by E. Curley in
Spinoza (1985).

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Jon Miller

be such a nature. Then, he says, it must be the case that if anyone sees that
he can live better on the gallows than at his table, he would act very foolishly if he did not go hang himself. After drawing this conclusion (which of
course follows by modus ponens from the two premises), Spinoza drops the
suicide case and returns to the original question about whether the naturally
bad person could do good. He writes, One who saw clearly that in fact he
would enjoy a better and more perfect life or essence by being a knave than
by following virtue would also be a fool if he were not a knave. For acts of
knavery would be virtue in relation to such a perverted human nature.
In this passage, Spinoza is employing a reductio ad absurdum strategy.
At the very beginning he alleges that his critics question presupposes a
contradiction. After leveling this charge, he launches into the argument
about suicide, which since it is meant to be analogous to the case imagined by his critic is supposed to help us see the contradiction in his opponents question. Given that the argument involving suicide is intended to
be analogous to the argument he makes about the bad person being good,
it must be the case that the suicide argument also presupposes a contradiction otherwise, it would not be analogous. Since the argument involving
suicide is in the form of a reductio, the proposition used to open the argument must be thought by Spinoza to entail a contradiction. Unfortunately
for us, he does not make explicit why he thinks it contradictory (but more
on that in a moment). For now, what matters is simply that the proposition
there is a person for whom it agreed better with his or her nature to hang
himself or herself entails a contradiction and therefore must be false. What
this passage suggests, then, is that Spinoza thought that it is not the case
that there is a person for whom it agreed better with his or her nature to
hang himself or herself. Only for a perverted human nature could hanging
agree suicide does not agree with unperverted or normal human nature.
Now, Spinoza does not say more in this passage than I have recounted
and so a regrettable ambiguity obscures his position, an ambiguity stemming principally from the word agree49. There are two interpretations we
can make of the word agree in this context. First, the failure of suicide
to agree with human nature could mean that it upsets or offends human
nature. If this is what Spinoza means, then it is not difficult to ascribe to
49 This is one of the few letters which seems to have been originally written in Dutch.
Since Spinoza seems to have translated it himself into Latin, we might use the two
words he uses to fix more precisely his intended meaning. Unfortunately, since those
words (overeenkwam and conveniret) are largely overlapping, this technique is ineffectual. Curleys translation is perfectly adequate; the ambiguity lies in Spinozas diction
and intentions.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

17

him the view that suicide is wrong (though it is hard to say exactly why or
in what sense). Second, the failure to agree could mean that it fails to concur
with human nature, that it is incompatible with it. If this is the correct interpretation, then Spinoza is making the bolder claim that it is not possible
for people to be acting in accordance with their own natures when they kill
themselves, and any alleged act of suicide must be reconsidered in light of
the fact that it is not initiated by the agents own nature. In fact, I prefer the
latter interpretation, but I am willing to allow that it may be undetermined
by the text. We cannot conclusively settle the matter with the resources provided by Letter 23; for that, we must rely on the Ethics.
In the relevant passage of the Ethics, Spinoza minces no words, declaring
that No one, therefore, unless he is defeated by causes external, and contrary, to his nature, neglects to seek his own advantage, or [sive] to preserve
his being. No one, I say, avoids food or kills himself from the necessity of his
own nature (IVP20S). It seems to me that this statement gives us the information we need to understand the sense in which suicide disagrees with
human nature. Here Spinoza maintains that no one chooses to kill himself,
that all such acts are brought about by causes external. This implies that
the disagreement of suicide with human nature is not ethical but ontological or metaphysical suicide is incompatible with human nature itself.
If suicide is defined as the act by which agents kill themselves through their
own agency alone50, then suicide is impossible because whenever agents
seem to kill themselves, they do not act under their own power but under
the power of another. Only for a perverted human nature is suicide a
possibility for unperverted or normal humans, it is not. Spinoza seems to

50 Since Spinoza himself never explicitly states what he takes suicide to be, I have been
forced to construct a definition that I think he would find acceptable. In formulating
it, I have taken into consideration his statements about suicide and his definitions of an
adequate cause and activity (IIID2 and D3). When discussing suicide, he completely
excludes intentions and reasons for action from his analysis. As a result, I do not think
it appropriate to attribute anything like Coopers conception of suicide to him. This
finding is reinforced, I think, by the fact that Spinoza in general does not factor intentions into his comments on actions or how actions should be evaluated. Thus, in IIID2
he says simply, I say that we act [ago] when something happens, in us or outside us, of
which we are the adequate cause, i. e. (by D1), when something in us or outside us follows from our nature, which can be clearly and distinctly understood through it alone.
I do not want to say that Spinoza uses a Durkheimian conception of action and suicide,
since Durkheim requires that the agent (at least in the case of suicide) know suicide
will be the outcome of her (positive or negative) action. If anything, Spinoza employs
an even broader conception, since he drops the foreknowledge requirement and counts
suicide and other actions as action just in case they follow from the agents nature.

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Jon Miller

confirm this interpretation at the end of the IVP20S where he writes, that
a man should, from the necessity of his own nature, strive not to exist, or
to be changed into another form, is as impossible as that something should
come from nothing.51
IVP20S is interesting not just for the way it clarifies the ambiguity
noted in Letter 23; it is also interesting because here Spinoza considers one
obvious objection to his position. It might be thought that our ordinary
experience contradicts the claim that suicide is impossible, for we all witness (in one way or another) acts of suicide on a regular basis. How, then,
can anyone maintain that it is impossible? In IVP20S Spinoza responds to
this criticism by examining three cases of apparent suicide. His strategy is to
interpret each in such a way as to prove that none is a genuine case of suicide
but rather involves killing of another kind. He writes:
Someone may kill himself because he is compelled by another, who twists his right
hand (which happened to hold a sword) and forces him to direct the sword against
his heart; or because he is forced by the command of a Tyrant (as Seneca was) to open
his veins, i. e., he desires to avoid a greater evil by [submitting to] a lesser; or finally
because hidden external causes so dispose his imagination, and so affect his Body, that
it takes on another nature, contrary to the former, a nature of which there cannot be
an idea in the Mind (by IIIP10).

Some observations. First, notice how Spinoza concedes that people do kill
themselves; he writes that Someone may kill himself...52. Spinoza does not
legislate the action we now call suicide out of existence; instead, he seeks
to provide a new understanding of it. Second, in each of the mentioned
cases Spinoza gives an analysis of the causal/conceptual chain of command
(so to speak), and shows that someone or something outside the person who
died passed the original command. In effect, this analysis implies that the
real killer is not the one doing the killing. Third, nowhere does the word
reason (ratio) or its cognates appear. It does not have to, because (as should
be apparent by now) Spinoza does not evaluate suicide in terms of its rationality or lack thereof. Which leads me to my fourth point: namely, that here
(as in the letter) Spinoza does not bother to evaluate suicide at all i. e., he
does not determine its moral worth or state when it is justified. I think this
is because he has no interest in examining the morality or immorality of
51 He further reinforces the point in IIIP10Dem: Whatever can destroy our Body cannot
be in it (by P5), and so the idea of this thing cannot be in God insofar as he has the idea
of our Body (by II9C), i. e. (by IIP11 and P13), the idea of this thing cannot be in our
Mind.
52 See also IVP18S: those who kill themselves are weak-minded and completely conquered by external causes contrary to their nature (G II: 222).

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

19

suicide what interests him is simply the question: is suicide possible? And
now (as before) Spinoza seems to say, no.
I should pause briefly to explain what I mean by impossible when I say
that for Spinoza, suicide is impossible. As is well known, he often conceives
of possibility as an epistemic notion. In this sense, people believe that things
are possible when they do not know enough about their causes to realize
that they are either necessary or impossible53. With regard to suicide, however, I do not think that this is the sense of possibility at play. Instead I think
Spinoza believes that suicide is an instance of what we might nowadays
call nomological impossibility.54 Nomological possibility constitutes the
second and final major category of the possible in Spinozas philosophy (the
first being epistemic possibility). Richard Mason explains how this kind of
possibility is cashed out:
If the laws of nature are taken as universal and necessitating, then whatever can be
the case can only be the case within them. To be possible cannot be to exist or to subsist in some shadow-realm of possibilities, but is simply to be an available outcome
within the framework of nature and natural laws... Possibilities become what is possible what can happen in a literal way.55

We shall shortly see that suicide is an action that violates at least one law of
nature. Since suicide is an action that violates the laws of nature, and since
all such actions are impossible, suicide is impossible56.
53 For example, see the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, 53 and Ethics IVD4.
54 I use this phrase somewhat reluctantly, as there are key differences between contemporary nomological accounts of modality and Spinozas. In particular, contemporary
accounts are contingent on the existence or occurrence of certain physical objects, states
or events. Contemporary accounts do not believe that the conditions which make the
laws true are themselves necessary. And they grant that if these conditions are not met,
then all bets are off; the laws may or may not hold of the new form nature has taken.
By contrast, while Spinozas modal views are contingent on the existence or occurrence
of certain objects or events (viz. Nature and its modes), those objects or events are not
themselves at all contingent; they are absolutely necessary. Since the conditions upon
which the laws are contingent are absolutely necessary, the laws themselves are necessary.
Although there is this important difference between contemporary theories of nomological possibility and Spinozas, both agree that the laws (whatever their own modal
status may be) are what structures and delimits the range of the possible. It is for this
reason that I persist in using terminology which otherwise threatens to mislead.
55 Richard Mason (1986), p. 325 6.
56 This is not the place to expound on Spinozas notion(s) of possibility; for more, see Masons article and my article in The Review of Metaphysics. I shall only make two pertinent
points. First, it is not enough to say that suicide is inconceivable and hence impossible,
for possibility ultimately amounts (on Spinozas account) to being able to occur within

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Jon Miller

Hitherto I have given a largely descriptive account of Spinozas view; now

I would like to discuss its argumentative basis. It depends entirely on one
crucial and much-disputed principle, conatus, which appears in the Ethics as
IIIP6: Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its
being.57 As with many of Spinozas innovations, deep problems plague the
proper interpretation of conatus. I will avoid these problems here, since I am
interested only in conatus application to suicide; to understand this, it is not
necessary to understand what exactly conatus means or involves58. This is
because no matter how conatus is interpreted, it forms the basis of Spinozas
views on suicide and forces him to the conclusion of suicides impossibility.
As the quote of IIIP6 shows, conatus is the doctrine that each thing
strives to persevere in its being. Now, this striving to remain in existence
is no accidental feature of each thing: IIIP7 adds to IIIP6 that [t]he striving by which each thing strives to persevere in its being is nothing but the
actual essence of the thing. Nor does the striving occur on an infrequent or
limited basis: according to IIIP8, [t]he striving by which each thing strives
the limits set by natures laws whereas conceivability is not so bounded. This does not
necessarily set very narrow limits on the possible; depending on what is said about initial conditions and the matrix of possibilities allowed by the natural laws, many more
things could occur than actually do. Even so, on my reading Spinoza will have to rule
out as impossible some things we presently like to think of as possible just because they
are conceivable, on the grounds that such things are not compossible with the laws of
nature. That is because nomological possibility and not conceptual possibility sets
the strict limits of all non-epistemic possibility in Spinozas philosophy. As he states in
the Tractatus Politicus, nature is not contained by the laws of human reason, but other
infinite laws, which concern the eternal order of universal nature [natura non legibus
humanae rationis continetur, sed infinitis aliis, quae totius naturae aeternum ordinem
respiciunt] (Chapter II, 8; translation with modification by Elwes in Spinoza
[1951]). My second point is this: whatever Spinoza takes a law of nature to be, and
whatever other laws of nature he may have identified, there can be little doubt that the
so-called conatus principle (which I am about to discuss) counts as a law of nature. Cf.
his statement in Chapter 16 of the Theological-Political Treatise, that it is the supreme
law of Nature that each thing endeavours to persist in its present being, as far as in it
lies, taking account of no other thing but itself (G III: 189; translation by Shirley in
Spinoza [1998]).
57 The Latin is: Unaquaeque res, quantum in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur.
There is little consensus on the proper translation of this proposition, especially the
phrase quantum in se est. See note 15 in Spinoza (1985), p. 498 9, for an introduction to the issues and some references. I remain agnostic on whether to prefer a more
literal translation than Curleys. It is my hope that my discussion of conatus will be
neutral enough to be acceptable to either way of taking the Latin.
58 I should say now my views on conatus have been molded by many good commentaries,
including especially Michael Della Rocca (1996), p. 193 210.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

21

to persevere in its being involves no finite time, but an indefinite time.59

For Spinoza, each being always does what it can to preserve its existence and
it does so under the strongest of compulsions: by its very essence. Spinoza
emphasizes these ideas later on, writing that
reason demands nothing contrary to nature, it demands that everyone love himself,
seek his own advantage, what is really useful to him, want what will really lead man
to a greater perfection, and absolutely, that everyone should strive to preserve his own
being as far as he can. is, indeed, is as necessarily true as that the whole is greater
than its part... (IVP18S)

Drawing these ideas together, we obtain the following three propositions:

each thing strives to persevere in its being; each thing does so because this
is the natural way for it to act that is, it acts in this manner because of its
nature; and each thing acts in this self-preserving manner for an indefinite
time or as long as it exists. If suicide is defined as the act by which the
agent kills herself or himself through her or his own agency alone60, then the
three propositions eliminate the possibility of suicide. The first and second
propositions entail that a being necessarily strives to preserve its own being
(necessarily because this act of self-preservation follows from the beings nature), to which the third adds that the being acts in a self-preserving manner
for the entire course of its existence.
It is true that in the passages dealing with conatus Spinoza does not directly mention suicide. But he does write that while we attend only to the
thing itself, and not to external causes, we shall not be able to find anything
in it which can destroy it... (IIIP4Dem). And finally, in IVP20S Spinoza
explicitly applies his no self-destruction doctrine61 to suicide in the last
sentence, where he writes that a man should, from the necessity of his own
nature, strive not to exist or to be changed into another form, is as impossible as that something should come from nothing. Spinoza does not tell us
about the nature of the impossibility of something coming from nothing, so
we cannot classify the precise nature of the impossibility of suicide. If what
I have said about his notion of possibility is correct, then it is impossible for
something to come from nothing because that violates the laws of nature.
But whether that is the correct reading of this modality is less important
than the mere fact that he calls suicide impossible, just as predicted. So
regardless of whether we find his views adequately explained or at all plausi-

59 In the Demonstration to IIIP8, Spinoza makes it clear that the indefinite time for
which the thing will strive to persevere in its being is for as long as the being exists.
60 See note 50 above.
61 I borrow the phrase from Bennett (1984), p. 234 ff.

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Jon Miller

ble, I think we must conclude that Spinozas views on conatus produced his
belief in the impossibility of suicide.
There is one text that may seem counter to this claim. IVP72 states that
A free man always acts honestly, not deceptively. In the Scholium to this
Proposition, Spinoza considers an objection:
Suppose someone now asks: what if a man could save himself from the present danger
of death by treachery? would not the principle of preserving his own being recommend, without qualification, that he be treacherous?
e reply to this is the same. If reason should recommend that, it would recommend it to all men. And so reason would recommend, without qualification, that men
make agreements, join forces, and have common rights only by deception i. e., that
really they have no common rights. is is absurd.

If one is faced with a choice between preserving ones existence by treacherous (perfidus) means or possibly dying and not being treacherous, then
one ought to choose the latter. This seems to imply that self-preservation is
not always primary; it can occasionally be overridden by other concerns. If
self-preservation is not always primary, then there are at least possible circumstances under which a person would or should commit suicide. If there
are possible circumstances when suicide would or should be committed, it
is not impossible after all.
For at least three reasons, IVP72S does not actually present the threat to
my interpretation that it seems to. First, this Scholium succeeds in casting
doubt on my interpretation only if it belongs in the Ethics, alongside Spinozas views on conatus and suicide. But in the opinion of some commentators,
the position of IVP72S in the Ethics is uncertain. The uncertainty does not
surround its authorship this cannot be doubted but whether he should
have written it. Thus, speaking of this Scholium and attendant passages,
David Bidney writes, Spinozas Stoic rationalism with its acknowledgment
of absolute moral standards is incompatible with his biological naturalism
which teaches the complete relativity of all good and evil, virtue and vice, to
the requirements of self-preservation.62 Bidney thinks that with IVP72S,
Spinoza has flatly contradicted himself: on the one hand, he has previously
argued for the primacy of self-preservation; but on the other, he concludes
with an uncompromising Stoic absolute idealism which discounts selfpreservation.63 If IVP72S is inconsistent with other, more well-established
Spinozistic doctrines (such as conatus), then perhaps one ought to discard

62 Bidney (1962), 317 (his italics).

63 Ibid. I might observe that Curley also thinks IVP72S rests uneasily in the Ethics; see his
note 37 p. 587.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

23

the former as a regrettable oversight, achieving consistency and preserving

the more central Spinozistic ideas in the bargain. And should this be done,
there would no longer be any textual basis for doubting my interpretation.
Bidney raises a serious objection to the coherence of Spinozism that we
unfortunately do not have the space to deal with here. For now, let us set
it aside and turn to the other two reasons why we need not be too alarmed
about IVP72S64. On the one hand, this Scholiums threat is dissolved by
reflection on the nature of the Spinozistic individual. IVP72S gains much of
its force if the individual is always conceived as a single human being (leaving aside other beings, for simplicitys sake). If the individual is always an
individual human being, then it is hard to see how individual humans could
undertake actions that are individually self-destructing in order to avoid
treachery. In such a case, the avoidance of treachery does seem to supercede
self-preservation; and so conatus is not the basic impulse of all action. Yet,
there is no need to conceive of Spinozistic individuals along these lines. In
IIP13SDef, Spinoza tells us what he means by an individual:
When a number of bodies, whether of the same or of different size, are so constrained by other bodies that they lie upon one another, or if they so move, whether
with the same degree or different degrees of speed, that they communicate their motions to each other in a certain fixed manner, we shall say that those bodies are united
with one another and that they all together compose one body or [sive] Individual,
which is distinguished from the others by this union of bodies.

It is consistent with this definition to think of, say, a well-trained army unit
as a single individual65. When one member of that army unit throws his
body down on a grenade to prevent others from being killed or wounded,
he is not committing suicide, since he is but a member of the true individu64 Let me be clear that I am merely mentioning Bidneys interpretation of IVP72S (it is a
common one, as is his solution to the alleged problem it raises), without intending to
endorse it in any way whatsoever. I do not agree with Bidney that it is inconsistent with
other texts and I critically respond to his arguments (which do spot a potentially major
incoherency in Spinozism) in chapter two of my dissertation (2002). As I argue in the
following paragraphs, there are other ways to reconcile IVP72S with my interpretation
of Spinozas views on suicide which do not require excising IVP72S, and I find these
vastly preferable to what Bidney proposes.
65 In fact, we are obliged to view a well-trained army unit as an individual by IIP13SLemma7S. Here a recursive definition of an individual is presented, according to which
larger and larger units can be conceived of as individuals so long as they maintain their
proportions of motions and rest. This only ends with Nature as a whole, which we
shall easily conceive is one Individual, whose parts, i. e., all bodies, vary in infinite
ways, without any change of the whole individual (G II: 102).

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al. The real individual in this example is the army unit and it is engaging
in self-preserving behavior, just as conatus maintains.
On the other hand, far from sacrificing the primacy of self-preservation
for other concerns (such as avoiding treachery), Spinoza (according to the
present reading) is saying that self-preservation dictates the avoidance of
treachery, no matter the circumstances. How could this be? The clue lies in
the important adverb without qualification (omnino). This word in effect
makes universalizability a required test of ones action. If one were to take
the maxim underlying a treacherous action undertaken to avoid the present
danger of death and make it perfectly general, the result would be that all
people make agreements, join forces, and have common rights only by
deception. In such an event, one would find oneself confronted by dangers
far greater than possibly dying. That is because there would be no common
rights. So the rational thing to do is always to avoid treachery always act
honestly. This is the rational action because it is that action which is most to
ones advantage: one can best preserve and enhance ones power of action by
acting honestly. Furthermore, given ones character as a rational being, even
the supposed short-term gains that could be had by dishonesty are not in
ones advantage. Because one is a rational being, what one strives to preserve
is ones rationality. Dishonesty and treachery are actions that undermine the
creation of conditions which allow the flourishing of reason, and so they are
incompatible with attempts to preserve ones true self and ones power of
acting. For these reasons, then, it turns out to be in ones self-interest specifically, in the interest of ones self-preservation that one ought not be
treacherous to avoid possible death. The grounds for reasons inability to
recommend treachery thus turn out to be precisely the same as those that
prevent suicide i. e., self-preservation or conatus66.
III. Stoics and (versus?) Spinoza on suicide
The first connection to be made between what Stoics and Spinoza thought
about suicide is obvious: they thought differently. For Spinoza, the question
to be asked about suicide is not so much whether it is right as whether it is

66 For a more extended discussion of IVP72, see Don Garrett (1990).

So far as I am aware, my interpretation of Spinozas views on suicide is novel. For a
different take, see Wallace Matson (1977). In the section on suicide (409 11), Matson
argues that suicide was possible for Spinoza but that it was an act of madness and
irrationality. Cf. also Bennett (1984), p. 234 40.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

25

possible. As I have argued, he does not think it is. Perhaps because he does
not think suicide is possible, he does not bother to address its moral standing. On the other hand, Stoics took suicide to be possible and concentrated
on whether it is right. As I have argued, Stoic analyses of suicide are highly
contextually specific: its rightness or wrongness depends on particulars
about the person committing suicide and the circumstances in which he or
she lives. Under certain circumstances, all Stoics thought that suicide might
be an appropriate action for a sage and that therefore it could sometimes be
moral. Their views on the fool are murkier, but here too at least some Stoics allowed for the possibility of a moral suicide. Described in this way, it is
clear that Stoics and Spinoza thought differently about suicide. But would
they have disagreed? Here the answer is both yes and no.
As we have seen, a definite conflict arises over the possibility of suicide:
whereas Stoics do think it possible, Spinoza does not. Even though they
disagree on the possibility of suicide, on another issue it is not so clear
Stoics and Spinoza do disagree. This is the rationality of suicide. As I said,
Spinoza does not say anything on this head. His silence forces us to conjecture whether, if it were granted that suicide is possible, it would be rational.
In my opinion, Letter 23 seems to indicate that he thought it would. In
that Letter Spinoza argues that if there were a man who was suicidal by nature, then he would act rationally if he should kill himself (he actually puts
the consequent negatively: he would act foolishly if he did not go hang
himself ). That is to say, if (and I stress the counterfactual character of this
conditional) there were no conflict between the end of self-preservation and
the end of conformity to nature, then it may be the case that for Spinoza
suicide could be a rational action. This belief is not so much interesting in
itself Spinoza would never grant the antecedent of the counterfactual conditional, just as he would never allow that there were a man who was suicidal by nature as for what it reveals about Spinozas views on the nature
of the rational act. To act rationally, we find Spinoza saying in this Letter,
one must act in conformity with nature67. And of course this conception
of the basic requirement for rational action is very like Stoicisms. What is
interesting, then, about comparing Stoics and Spinoza on suicide is not just
what this teaches us about how they differ: essentially, the difference stems
from conflicting views over the primacy of self-preservation, which Spinoza
takes to be unrevisable and Stoics do not. In addition, what is interesting is
that Stoics and Spinoza construct similar standards for rational and, given

67 Variations on this basic idea appear in other places besides Letter 23. For example, see
the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, 13; Ethics IVP27 P31; Ethics IVAppIX.

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the close relationship both parties posit between rationality and morality,
moral action: namely, that to be rational one must conform to nature.
So far I have argued for two conclusions, one relatively narrow and the
other less so. The narrow conclusion is this: whereas Stoics think conformity to nature can require some humans to commit suicide, because Spinoza
denies the very possibility of suicide (for reasons pertaining to conatus), he
does not think that conformity to nature or any other obligation (if such
there be) can compel one to this action. The more far-reaching conclusion
is this: the standards for rational actions are the same for both Spinoza and
Stoics: those actions are rational that conform to nature. To end this paper
and draw two more conclusions, I will bridge the gaps of time and contrast
Stoics and Spinoza with some contemporary views on suicide.
I will take Battin (1995) as my source. Her book contains, among other
things, an analysis of common contemporary attitudes to suicide. One
such attitude is based on the assumption that suicide is an action, properly
speaking, and so is properly describable as moral or immoral. Very often,
this same attitude has associated with it the assumption that an acts rationality is a sign of its moral rectitude. If all this is true, then Battin argues
that whether there can be, by even an approximate set of criteria, any such
thing as rational suicide becomes a pressing philosophical question...68.
In pursuit of an answer to this question, she begins by enumerating a set of
criteria for rationality which can be used to assess the rationality of suicide
acts69. Then she proceeds to examine the requirements for meeting each of
these criteria. After completing this examination, and after discussing several actual suicides and suicide types, she argues that some persons do choose
suicide in preference to continuing life on the basis of reasoning that is by all
usual standards adequate and that where other strategies will not succeed,
suicide may be the only rational thing to do.70 From this, Battin concludes
that those who believe that suicide is an action and that rational actions are
moral actions may need to reconsider [their] moral assessment of suicide
(at least, if they previously considered suicide morally indefensible)71.
Now, there are substantial points of agreement and disagreement between this view of suicide and that of the Stoics and Spinoza. Both of the
latter would agree with Battins call for a reinspection of our views on
68 Battin (1995), p. 133.
69 They include: ability to reason, having a realistic world view, possessing adequate information when contemplating suicide, avoidance of harm, and accordance of suicide
with fundamental interests (p. 132).
70 Battin (1995), p. 135, 153.
71 Battin (1995), p. 131.

Stoics and Spinoza on suicide

27

suicide should it be found potentially rational. But they would doubtless

disagree with many of Battins proposals, including her contention that rational acts are not necessarily morally good72 and her specification of the
criteria for rational suicide. More importantly, they might claim with some
justification to be on philosophically firmer ground than Battin (or those
she represents), inasmuch as they can base their ethical claims on a well-integrated metaphysical conception of the nature of human beings and their
proper place in the world, something notoriously absent from contemporary philosophy and hence unavailable to Battin. Unlike Battin, whose set
of necessary and sufficient conditions for rational actions are ad hoc 73, Stoics
and Spinoza apply a previously devised and comprehensive outlook on life
to the problem of suicide. For this reason, they might reasonably believe
that their views are better argued for.
The other contrast I will make revolves around what Battin calls the determinist view of suicide. Consider some tenets and facts of the determinist view that she lists:
suicide is involuntary and nondeliberative, the outcome of factors over which the
individual has no control;
suicide is something that happens to the victim, a symptom of an illness or derangement that the victim cannot control;
as a result of the preceding, it is irrelevant and misleading to speak of the moral
issues facing such a person, and he or she cannot be held responsible for causing his or
her own death... e only moral issue, if there is one, concerns the role to be taken by
individual or institutional bystanders to the act.;
[e determinist view] is prevalent among modern scientific approaches to suicide; ... Our public policies, prevention services, and treatment programs for suicide
are virtually all based on the deterministic view; this is true also of research programs
and decriminalizing amendments to the law. We live in a culture that widely regards
suicide as an occurrence, not as a choice.74

Of course, this attitude to suicide differs greatly from the other one Battin
outlines; I also think that if we were to decide whose principles it matches

72 Battin writes, That an act is rational does not mean, of course, that it is also morally
good (p. 131).
73 Battin herself is cognizant of this weakness in her argument. She writes that her five
criteria used here to assess the rationality of suicide are the same criteria we would
use to assess any other act or choice. Of course such a list of criteria will itself invite
philosophic dispute. There is little consensus among philosophers on the precise characterization of rationality... Rather than divert ourselves with these preliminary difficulties, however, we shall simply posit the five criteria to be discussed, and suggest that a
rational suicide will meet all or most of them (p. 132).
74 Battin (1995), p. 3 4.

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more closely, the answer would have to be Spinozas. Stoics are at pains to
emphasize the deliberateness of suicide, the control rational agents have
over their choice of whether to end their lives, the moral significance of
using preferred indifferents (such as life) properly. Spinoza, on the other
hand, does not see the point of exploring these issues. It may surprise some
contemporary philosophers to learn that their views on suicide closely correspond with someone who denies its very possibility; at the very least, I
should think that this would invite reflection on the proper definition of the
suicide act itself. Maybe Spinoza is wrong maybe suicide is possible but
if so, one might wonder whether it is possible to maintain the modern determinist view of suicide. If it is possible, then determinists might be forced
into the Stoic camp. But if not, maybe they ought to be Spinozists. That is,
when it comes to suicide, if one takes a deterministic outlook, either one is
a Spinozist or one is a Stoic, but not both.
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