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Two Notes on Greek Suicide
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Near the end of the fifth book of Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle has a brief discussion (1138a6–14) of suicide, to illustrate the question of whether one can wrong one's self. Suicide, he declares, is not enjoined by law, and what law does not enjoin, it forbids. Thus the suicide does do wrong – but to whom or what? Surely the polis, not himself (for his suffering is voluntary, and no one wrongs himself voluntarily). δι κα πλις ζημιοῖ, κα ις τιμα πρσεστι τῷ αυτν διαφθεραντι ὡς π πλιν δικοντι.
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