Suicide of Adrian and Udayan:
(act of cowardice or exercisers of philosophical choice?)
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Department of English
Semester 4
Enrollment no.
2069108420200018
Paper : The New Literature
Batch year: 2019 - 21
Presented by: Ruchi Joshi

Characterizing the suicide?
• Suicide is the act or an
instance of taking one's
own life voluntarily and
intentionally. (Suicide)
• Suicide as a symptom-
both of individual
psychopathology and social
disorganization. (Cholbi,
Suicide)

Problem of perception with suicide
• Moral problem
• Religious problem
• Historical western thoughts
• Scientific problem
Scientific
Problems
Egoistic
suicide
Altruistic
Suicide
Anomic
Suicide

Self destruction
(self cause death is not suicide)
Are
these
deaths
suicide?

School of Philosophy and Suicide
(There are two main philosophical issues regarding suicide)
Issues
first, whether suicide is morally
permissible, and if so, in what
circumstances
whether a person who knows that
someone is contemplating or
attempting suicide has an
obligation to intervene and if so,
how strong that obligation is.
Common philosophical opinion of suicide since
modernization reflected a spread in cultural beliefs
of western societies that suicide is immoral and
unethical. One popular argument is that many of
the reasons for committing suicide —such as
depression, emotional pain, or economic
hardship—are transitory and can be ameliorated
by therapy and through making changes to some
aspects of one's life.

Suicide: A Philosophy
A philosophical learning
(What is to do something intentionally?)
• Edwin Schneidman defines suicide as “the conscious act of
self-induced annihilation, best understood as a
multidimensional malaise in a needful individual who defines
an issue for which the act is perceived as the best solution”

Neglect of civic life and duty
Unnatural act and also as all
offense against the state

Socrates Lucretius
Epictetus
Camus Wittgenstein
Noteworthy philosophers who supported
philosophy of suicide

From absurd to ‘philosophical suicide’
(1)
Physical
Suicide
(2)
Philosophical
suicide
(3)
Accepting the
absurd
Kinds of
suicide
According to Durkheim…

Goes beyond the deontological
argument from the sanctity of life
two philosophical
characters –
Adrian and Udayan
The simplest moral outlook on suicide
holds that it is necessarily wrong
because human life is sacred. Though
this position is often associated with
religious thinkers, Ronald Dworkin
(1993) points out that atheists may
appeal to this claim as well. According
to this ‘sanctity of life’ view, human life
is inherently valuable and precious,
demanding respect from others and
reverence for oneself. (Cholbi Suicide)
Finally, it is not obvious that adequate respect for the sanctity of
human life prohibits ending a life, whether by suicide or other means.
Justifying from both the
characters…

Reading Philosophical Suicide from…
Adrian Finn Udayan

What if instead of Adrian, Tony had committed
suicide?
Is there any chance of happening this? If yes, Is
there any possibility that it would not been out
of unhappiness?
If Tony commit suicide at the end of the novel
out of remorse, is it really possible to look at
philosophically?
Before analyzing Adrian and Udayan’s
suicide as philosophical let’s assume
that…
What if instead of Udayan, Aniket had committed
suicide?
(here this question reaches to much depth as Aniket
is not character like Tony, Aniket’s philosophy
towards life is also quite rational)
Is there any chance of happening this this?
Is it possible that it would not been out of
unhappiness because it is quite difficult to look at
by wearing this lens as it is also difficult to assume
even as it is nearly impossible to character like
Aniket to reach state where suicide becomes
philosophically compulsion?

How Udayan’s death is suicide?
• Doesn’t commit suicide directly
• His making of choice to meet patients of Radio Active at
Japan
• His denial to medical treatment
• His behavior in car when sunlight irritates him yet he keeps
mum
• Do not commit suicide but invites or just waits
• Ultimately chooses not to live

Idealizing rationality in Adrian and
Udayan’s Suicide
• Even moral permissibility
• It depends on how these questions
are ought to be answered (Peretz The
Illusion of 'Rational' Suicide)
• Both kill their selves but not out of
emotional force but they justifies
also and with their own
responsibility
• not out of carelessness
What if Adrian and
Udayan chose it out of
rationality?

• Libertarian views and the right to suicide
• Exercise right to noninterference
• Relation to body
• For example, What’s wrong if any woman is in
need of money and owns it by the means of
prostitution – but society, religion and morals
will prove it wrong!
• Is it really slut or act of cowardice or compulsion
of exercising that choice?

Adrian and Udayan’s Suicide as a
philosophical and moral duty
• Philosophical arguments against and in favor of suicide (Kehinde and Austin
PHILOSOPHICAL PERCEPTIONS OF SUICIDE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE
SANCTITY OF LIFE)
• Self destruction out of happiness
Adrian : His last days were happy
Udayan : dies in the absence of any regret
(Udayan’s last will and words which are written by Amrita in hospital)

Death with dignity
Adrian and Udayan’s travel
( School of Philosophy and Suicide)
• End v/s conclusion
• Adrian and Udayan’s suicide will be tempting to say that suicide is any self-
caused death, this account is vulnerable to obvious counterexamples.
• If we refuse to adopt the notion of rational suicide of Adrian and Udayan, we
fail to honor the moral imperative of allowing individuals intolerable and
irremediable circumstances their fundamental right to die.
• Both are cautious and not confuse in philosophizing about suicide which is
an attempt to bring maximum rationality to bear, with choosing suicide as a
cause of action.

Social, utilitarian and role-based
argument
Utilitarian views holds that we
have a moral duty to maximize
happiness- from which it
follows that when all act of
suicide will produce more
happiness than will remaining
alive- then that suicide is not
just permitted but required!
Thus, Adrian and Udayan
require an honor. Here,
suicide itself becomes an
honor.
Adrian and Udayn fulfil
moral duty.

Adrian and Udayan:
(suicide, virtue and life’s meaning)
Kant’s opposition and Bogen’s argument
‘Bogen’ observes that even when we have
adequately determined that a given act
of suicide is morally and philosophically
permissible, question remains about
whether that act represents ‘the best way
to live and to end one’s life’
Do you find meaning even in
the self killing of Udayan and
Adrian?
Meaning lies in how it is
answered
Solves major
conflict
between
knowing and
acting on it

Victory over life
“Some dispositions or temperaments may never be
morally comfortable with such a choice like suicide, which
they would regard as cowardly, disloyal, or
fundamentally irrational. Within the framework of an
ethics of virtue similar to the one sketched here, the act of
suicide may indeed be the most courageous, loving, or
flirting thing to do, and for that reason morally correct.”
(KLINEFELTER THE MORALITY OF SUICIDE)

Are you coward?
Do you still consider suicide as a act of cowardice?
If not, is suicide only answer to prove courage in
philosophy?

Work cited
• Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Vintage, 2017.
• Cholbi, Michael. “Suicide.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 21 July 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/.
• Kaufmann, Walter. “Existentialism and Death.” Chicago Review, vol. 13, no. 2, 1959, pp. 75–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25293517.
Accessed 24 Apr. 2021.
• Kehinde, Obasola, and Omomia O. Austin. “PHILOSOPHICAL PERCEPTIONS OF SUICIDE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SANCTITY
OF LIFE.” Global Journal of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. Vol.2, Dec. 2014, pp. 47–62.,
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• KLINEFELTER, DONALD S. “THE MORALITY OF SUICIDE.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 67, no. 3, 1984, pp. 336–
354. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41178307. Accessed 24 Apr. 2021.
• Noon, Georgia. “On Suicide.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 39, no. 3, 1978, pp. 371–386. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2709383.
Accessed 24 Apr. 2021.
• Peretz, David. “The Illusion of 'Rational' Suicide.” The Hastings Center Report, vol. 11, no. 6, 1981, pp. 40–42. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/3560543. Accessed 24 Apr. 2021.
• Wenquan, WU. On the Motif of Death in Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. Canadian Social Science, 2015,
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• “Suicide.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suicide.
Reference