Law Commons^™

Suicidal Rights, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

The legal debate regarding the right to commit suicide requires a critical review of the relationship between the individual and the community in present liberal political thought. Modern liberal political thought postulates that the government or community must be neutral about what is good both for members of the community and the community itself. It also postulates that there exists a sphere of action which affects solely an individual.

The neutrality postulate and the harm of self/harm to others dichotomy are best explicated by John Stuart Mill in his essay On Liberty, in which Mill separates and categorizes the individual …