Economics Of Suicide

This is an exciting one for me because the Economics of Suicide might resolve two philosophical schools of thought. I will first present the philosophical idea of anti-natalism: The view that having children is a bad thing since procreating will create a human that will suffer in his/her existence. The opposing view emphasizes the sanctity of life, this coming mostly from a religious school of thought. Some psychological theories of suicide support the latter, where suicide is seen as a result of mental illness, since no sane person can want to put an end to his life. I will then try to resolve this dispute with an economic approach. Here individuals are presented with a utility function where suicide is a perfect response for future discounted negative utility.

Anti-natalism

David Benatar’s book “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence” describes the view that bringing people into existence is unethical (anti-natalism) and that life is overvalued by the people living it (pro-death). The anti-natalist view can be described by the common sense responsibility of parents.

Imagine you are thinking of having a child with your spouse. Further, imagine that you know that there is a high chance of the child having genetic issues. You know for a fact that your potential child will have to suffer immensely due that that gene defect. There is a strong moral argument to be made not to have that child.

Now imagine you can be certain that your child will live a happy and healthy live. Following this logic you would be obliged to have as many children as possible. But it doesn’t seem immoral to deny the existence of 50 happy children. Try explaining this logic at a dinner party – its not going to hold.

The common sense view is that having a child that suffers is immoral, while not having dozens of happy children is okay. Benatar calls this the “asymmetry between pain and pleasure”. Taking this view to the extreme this means that creating any being that ever suffers is immoral, since we are responsible for creating that suffering while we aren’t responsible for not creating the pleasure.

Benatar then goes on to say that even if we feel morally obliged to not forgo happy children, we still overestimate this child’s happiness. This is where he then get’s into pro-death, saying that it might be moral to wipe out existence as a whole to avoid suffering once and for all.

Pro-Life

In stark opposition to Benetar’s view is the pro-life camp. Mostly religious, they argue that life is sacred at every stage of life. Psychological literature comes at this view from a different angle, with the same outcome: Life is always worth living – only mentally ill people (depression, schizophrenia…) will attempt suicide – these people must be treated or sent to a mental institution where the utmost is done for them not to kill themselves.

I understand that anti-natalists and pro-lifers are not necessarily in direct contrast with each other. The former is a philosophical view against suffering for potential people, while the latter argues for future pleasure for existing people. Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, I will crudly postulate that there are two opposing schools that claim (1) Life is shit, don’t procreate, and maybe kill yourself, or (2) Life is sacred and unique, and for god’s sake, please don’t end your beautiful life.

Economics of Suicide

As always, the answer is economics! My greatly appreciated professor Hamermesh published a revolutionary paper called “An Economic Theory of Suicide” (1974). The main argument is that people who have a negative future discounted utility will (and maybe should) kill themselves. I will go on to describe a simple mathematical model now. If you aren’t interested in that skip to “The Economic Solution”

It starts by saying that people have a Utility of Life U(L). This future utility must be discounted with time. I will give more weight to the utility in the next 5 years than the possible utility I derive in 50 years’ time. Thus, we can split the utility in short term (U(Lst)) and in long term (U(Llt)) discounting the former with a smaller factor(dx) then the latter (dx+y)

This means that a small negative short term utility (U(Lst)= -2) with a small discount factor (dx=1.5) can outweigh a large positive long term utility (U(Llt)= 1000) with a large discount factor (dx+y=1000).

This hypothetical example shows that short term negative utility, which we can all imagine, can outweigh long term positive utility. A further variable incorporates the cost and opportunity cost of killing oneself. First of all it comes with monetary costs (buying supplies or hiring a swiss assisted suicide company), it takes time and effort, and it must be frightening. Thus, we denote the cost of suicide with (Cs). This can now be incorporated in a U(L) of someone wanting to kill themselves .

To go through with suicide the utility of Life with suicide (U(Lsuicide) must be negative since you would kill yourself if its positive. Here the negative utility of living must outweigh the positive opportunity cost of suicide. Here the opportunity cost of not killing yourself might get you back to positive utility, thus not kill yourself. Thus, the negativity of life utility must exceed the cost of killing for the suicide utility to still be negative. This can be extrapolated by saying that cheap assisted suicide should be available and legal since it helps people with negative utilities to go through with their suicide.

In Hamermesh’s paper income, age, and Catholicism are additional variables which define the utility of a person.

The Economic Solution

Suicide is a utility-maximizing action. Those who estimate a negative future discounted utility are best off by killing themselves (given the barrier to entry of actually going through with the killing). People who have positive future utility should prolong their lives. This is a perfect middle ground between anti-natalists and pro-lifers. It allows rational agents to act on their utility function, creating a society of only those who chose to live due to positive utility. It also resolves the puzzle of procreation. I don’t think there is a moral dilemma of creating a suffering human life, if that human can freely and cheaply decide to end it’s life. So, are you worse off having been created? Well, you can decide that for yourself.