O suicídio altruísta: o sacrifício por amor puro na filosofia de Schopenhauer

Abstract

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the possibility of altruistic suicide being a virtuous action from the point of view of Schopenhauerian philosophy. The philosopher considers suicide to be senseless and affirms that it is an action of affirmation of the Will. If the human being has the tendency to affirm the Will in a egocentric and purely individual way, his original attitudes are selfish. In view that Schopenhauer considers only the ascetic suicide (by inanition) as the only way to choose death, indeed, with any moral value, because it is the denial of the Will itself, the research aims to achieve answers to some questions, such as: would it be immoral the case in which, by an act of pure compassion and altruism, someone would choose to die for the survival of another person? The philosopher, in On the basis of morality, proposes that deeds of compassion are the only basis for a moral attitude. Compassion (as well as asceticism), is the negation of one's voracious will, therefore, it is essentially moral. Can it be that one who sacrifices his own life for someone else is acting compassionately?