SOCIAL MORALITY AND SUICIDE

Tom suggests that my recent claim that all morality is social is incompatible with Christianity:

Let's use as an example a homeless person, with no family, no friends, no job, no debtors, and in all regards of no significance to anybody. If this person commits suicide, it will go un-noticed, and will effect no one. Does that mean that suicide in this case is not immoral? Christianity teaches us that suicide is wrong in all cases, but Nathanael teaches us that morality is only relevant in a social environment.

Tom realizes that suicide, though the chief victim is oneself, does affect others, and so cannot be prohibited on the basis of "it's my own business." That's why he sets up his example so carefully, mentioning the lack of family, friends, job, etc.: the force of his point depends on the suicide "affecting no one." If I had to concede that a suicide might "affect no one," that for some individual there was no possibility of any present or future social interaction that might be disrupted by his suicide, it would be difficult to affirm both that all morality is social and that suicide is always wrong. But I don't think I will ever have to concede this. If the homeless man lives in a city, there are a huge array of possible social interactions which he might engage in, good and bad, from smiling at old ladies to knocking them over the head, from sitting on a street corners thinking up jokes to crack for the benefit of passersby, to cleaning the streets. And tomorrow his country may be overrun by enemy armies, and he may have an opportunity to join the resistance movement and be a hero.