Immanuel Kant’s (2002) stance on suicide as an act of “debasing of humanity in one’s person” has sparked debates. There is discussion on (1) the sense in which suicide is a violation of the universalizability principle and the humanity formula and (2) Kant’s unclear and imprecise discussion on suicide. However, literature regarding the supposed inconsistency of Kant’s stance on suicide vis-à-vis his conception of morality remains underdeveloped – specifically, with reference to his Kingdom of Ends (KoE) formula. In this paper, I forward an account of Kant’s stance on suicide vis-à-vis KoE formula, underpinning the importance of Christine Korsgaard’s (1996a) idea of relations of responsible reciprocity (RR) among human beings. By focusing on Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (2002), as well as Korsgaard’s Creating the Kingdom of Ends (1996a) and The Sources of Normativity (1996b), I investigate why and how Kant’s stance on suicide becomes an inconsistency in his very notion of morality, with reference to KoE. I argue that in problematizing Kant’s conception of morality, it is important to reexamine his notions of universalizablity, humanity, and KoE. I conclude that in discussing Kant’s stance on suicide, it is imperative to underpin KoE, a Kantian concept that recognizes RR.
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of the Philippines Los Baños
Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines Los Baños Research Interests: Philosophy for Children, Philosophy of Childhood, Kantian Ethics, Philosophy of Education, Philosophy of Humor
Tuesday July 7, 2026 12:00pm - 12:55pm NZST MSB1.01
According to procreative asymmetry, there is a reason not to create a miserable life not worth living, whereas there is no reason to create a life worth living for its own sake. Although this idea is plausible, it is difficult to account for within a standard consequentialist framework based on population axiology. This paper proposes a new formal framework that extends consequentialism and argues that this intuition can be given a welfarist explanation in terms of dynamic consistency. More specifically, the framework evaluates actions not only in terms of the outcomes they bring about, but also in terms of the outcomes before those actions are performed. As a result, it becomes possible to distinguish between improving the well-being of existing individuals and creating new happy individuals. Within this framework, the axiom of dynamic consistency yields a result corresponding to the asymmetry. Creating a miserable life not worth living is impermissible because it is inconsistent with the ex post perspective, whereas refraining from creating a life worth living is permissible. Moreover, from the same mechanism of consistency, the intuitive judgments in the non-identity problem can also be explained in a unified way.
"A clinician suggests to a person who physically injures themselves without suicidal intent to use red ink instead to simulate the injury without causing physical harm."
Debates about harm reduction in non-suicidal self-harm (NSSH) usually focus on questions of safety, proportionality, and autonomy from a third-person perspective concerned with outcomes and professional responsibilities. Harm reduction, in this context, refers to interventions aimed at reducing physical harm without necessarily requiring immediate cessation of NSSH. I argue that this approach is incomplete because it overlooks the communicative dimension of harm reduction interventions. The ethical significance of these interventions depends not only on clinical intentions, but also on how they are framed, offered, and interpreted by the person receiving care. Ethical evaluation requires attention to both third-person justification and first-person experience. An intervention may be clinically appropriate and voluntary, yet still be experienced as dismissive, corrective, or validating depending on how it is framed and received within the clinical encounter. This gap between professional justification and personal meaning is ethically important because harm can arise not only through physical outcomes, but also through the meanings conveyed and interpreted in care relationships."
Snita (she/her) is the Programme Lead for the lived experience education and research programme World of Difference | He Ao Whakatoihara kore within the Department of Psychological Medicine, Wellington. She was previously a visiting research scholar in philosophy and a teaching fellow... Read More →
Huizinga (1950) argued for a conceptual overlap between sport, games, and play. Others, like McIntyre (1981), contended that sport was a socially established cooperative activity. Still others maintained that the definitiveness of sport lies in the exemplification of specific criteria, such as competitiveness (Krein, 2014; 2015). No one has asked non-specialists about their views despite that they may have strong, considered views. In this paper, we report results of an experiment we conducted where we asked 879 participants to rate 36 activities on a sport-likeness scale. We hypothesised that participants would rate activities governed by constitutive rules (overcoming unnecessary obstacles to achieve a goal (Suits 1978), e.g., golf’s aim is to get the ball in the hole) more highly sport-like than those activities that are governed by facilitative rules (rules that facilitate an activity, e.g., the goal of sprinting is to run a short distance as fast as possible). We also hypothesised that activities with predominantly gross motor demands, such as rugby or American football, would be rated more highly sport-like than those activities that relied primarily on fine motor skill, like snooker or archery. While some results were surprising, our hypotheses were borne out by the data we collected.
