Rational suicide is the reason-guided decision to end one's life, specifically, when these reasons are the result of an indifferent or temperate weighing of pros and cons. It has been argued that a suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 can be rational

Rationality

In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...

 and still nonetheless be a mistake. Rational suicide is sometimes viewed as a subjective

Subjectivity

Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...

 concept; Jerome Motto writes, "What may be an inconvenience, a source of discomfort, or an embarrassment to one person represents unbearable agony, excruciating pain, or intolerable humiliation

Humiliation

Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It can be brought about through bullying, intimidation, physical or mental mistreatment or trickery, or by embarrassment if a person is revealed to have...

 to another." One study of mental health counselor

Mental Health Counselor

Mental health counselors practice mental health counseling which is a dynamic, holistic, strengths-based and psychoeducational discipline born in the late 1970s when several mental health professionals realized that the master’s degree level counselors working in community settings lacked a...

s found that 80% of respondents were moderately supportive of the idea that people can make well-reasoned decisions that death is their best option. It is believed that in coming years clinic

Clinic

A clinic is a health care facility that is primarily devoted to the care of outpatients...

ians will increasingly be confronted by patients declaring their intention to exercise their right-to-suicide

Right to die

The right to die is the ethical or institutional entitlement of the individual to commit suicide or to undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood to mean that a person with a terminal illness should be allowed to commit suicide or assisted suicide or to decline...

 or to commit what they describe as a rational suicide. The “received orthodoxy” of mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

professionals for more than a century views all suicides as irrational and holds that suicidal persons should always be prevented from ending their own lives.