Can You Be Held Morally Accountable for Harm You Do to Yourself?

Morality and the self — a quandary

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Intent and culpability

When examining whether someone can be held morally accountable for harmful actions they do to themselves, such as self-harm or suicide, we first of all need to examine their intent. When looking at suicide versus killing another person, for example, we can say that the person’s intent is always to kill someone and take a life, no matter whether this is their own life or someone else’s. This makes them morally culpable as they intend to kill. They can’t remove themselves from the equation, so a life is still lost, and it is irrelevant whether this is the person’s own life or another person’s. In both cases, the moral culpability is the same.

Universability test

Further, Kant’s universability test can be applied to ascertain whether self-harm or suicide are morally culpable actions. The universability test makes us consider what would happen if the consequences of our actions would be universalised, or in other words, what if everyone did the action in question. If we, upon rational examination of the situation, are content for everyone to go around and commit his action, then it is morally right.

If we would object to everyone committing this action, then it is considered morally wrong according to the universability test. So if we would object to everyone walking around and hurting themselves or killing themselves, then we can say these are morally culpable actions.

Known vs. secret act

The question then arises what applies if the act to oneself is committed in private and no other persons know about it, i.e. whether interaction with others and effects on others are required to make something a culpable act or whether an act is per se morally culpable even if committed in private with (seemingly) no external effects.

According to Kant, certain actions like murder, theft and lying, and consequently also self-harm and suicide, would still be culpable acts even if no one else is experiencing pain as a result. Such actions are therefore always prohibited and morally wrong, even if performing them would bring about more happiness than the alternative of not performing them.

So the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but is always universally evident. This applies to all actions, those performed on others and to oneself. Therefore, individuals can be very much held morally accountable for actions they commit to themselves.

Utilitarian view

Utilitarianism also considers acts committed to oneself morally culpable acts; the reason being that the person is still experiencing pain, or at least more pain than they would be experiencing otherwise without committing the act. Further, if after one’s passing other people do find out about the action, the suicide, for example, might decrease their happiness and increase their pain, thus again making it a culpable act from a utilitarian perspective.

Right-or-wrong label

We can say that objective moral theories, such as Kantianism, virtue ethics and utilitarianism, all agree that actions are generally wrong or right, irrespective of where we are, what time it is and in which culture we are born. Morality is thus assigned a fact-of-the-matter right or wrong label. For instance, we might believe kicking puppies is always fundamentally wrong, no matter in what culture or year this is happening.

Certain actions are therefore always morally right or wrong, whether we personally believe the same or disagree. They can thus be considered a sort of pre-existing moral or ethics, or ‘essence before existence’. Actions are therefore subject to moral absolutes. For instance, we can categorically say that having slaves is always wrong in any circumstances, including in ancient Rome when it was considered culturally acceptable.

In addition, our own potential ignorance does not absolve us from committing a morally culpable act. Even though we might be subjectively unaware that the action we commit upon ourselves is wrong, it is still objectively wrong.

The self

It might also be argued that it depends on how one defines the self when answering the question whether actions someone does to themselves can be morally culpable. According to existentialist theory, there is only the physical self and the mind is merely a product of the brain.

Mind–body dualism, on the other hand, assumes that the mind and body are distinct and separate entities. The question then arises what even constitutes the self and which part can be considered morally accountable for one’s actions.

One might argue that if the mind is considered a separate entity to the body, it can be held accountable for actions committed to one’s own body. But if they are considered to be one and the same, this point of view might be problematic. If we define accountability as having to give account to someone or some entity, and being blameworthy and liable, but if this entity and the person committing the act are one and the same, then who are they liable towards and to whom do they need to give account? If this is not a separate entity, one could argue the action cannot be subject to moral culpability.

Conclusion

In my opinion, actions are generally wrong or right. Cultural relativism does not convince, and there are universal concepts that apply to every human across time and cultures. Acts against the body cause harm and pain, or even violate essential human rights such as the right to physical integrity. No matter who commits the act and who the body is, the act is still committed and therefore a morally condemnable action is performed. The fact that the body it is performed on may be the person’s own is entirely irrelevant. The action is still inherently wrong and the person committing it is therefore morally culpable.