Theories Of Emile Durkheim Suicide

The interpretivist approach directly contrasts the positivist one and seeks to focus on the meanings of suicide for those involved. Douglas criticises Durkheim's use of official statistics as they are not accurate and recommends qualitative studies to discover the real rate of suicide. The statistics are a result of a coroners label and thus it is not trustworthy in his view. This suggested that cases are decided on "the basis of probability”. Douglas further seeks to find out the meaning of the suicide

On average, every day, 121 people die from suicide, which means 44,193 deaths each year just in the United States. On the other hand, for every one suicide, there are at least 25 attempts. Every attempt that “failed” is just another chance to save a life. An unknown source once quoted “Suicide doesn’t end the chances of life getting worse, it eliminates the possibility of it ever getting any better.” There are multiple methods a person can choose from to commit suicide, but this essay will be discussing two specific methods: jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge and physician-assisted suicide.

Finally, we have Fatalistic suicide, which occurs in societies with high levels of social regulation. This is only briefly discussed in Durkheim’s work, as he saw Fatalistic suicide, “as a rare phenomena in the real world.� (I1) An example might be someone with an overregulated and difficult life, like a slave.

In The Politics of Suicide, Maria Teresa Brancaccio, Eric J. Engstrom, and David Lederer investigate and unravel the conceptualization and operationalization of suicide in the years leading up the Emile Durkheim. It wasn’t until the age of the Enlightenment that the concept of taking one’s own life was deemed worthy of scientific analysis (Brancaccio, Engstrom, & Lederer, 2013). It was during this time that police, physicians, and mental health care providers began to determine the indicators of such potential behaviors and began to see such rising trends as modern social dilemma (2013).

The debate between Mark A.R. Kleinman and Ira Byock discuss the topic of suicide whether it should be legal or not; Kleinman is arguing for suicide to be legal, which will come to the conclusion that suicide should be allowed for anyone and not have any punishment for an attempt. Byock argues the opposing argument that suicide should be illegal, but the focus of this argument will be Kleiman’s point of view. The exigency, the problem that can be fixed, is viewed in this argument that it is the people’s right to kill themselves and this is due to the depression and/or the feeling of thinking they are better off dead. The audience directed towards this argument is people committing suicide and those who oppose the people committing the ‘crime’ of suicide. Constraints, the biases, in this situation would be ethical beliefs and the people who have witnessed or experienced these suicidal thoughts. Kleinman’s reasoning is the use of emotion and human rights are seen to enhance his argument. Therefore suicide should not be legal, it should be treated instead of encouraged.

In the study of philosophy, it is evident that there are notions that agree and disagree with each other. When we narrow down philosophical time periods, it is even more interesting to see how ideas conflict in such a short period of time. As we observe the period between Georg Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche, we are approached with an array of beliefs as religious philosophy is combined with non-religious philosophy. The undeniable aspect is that each concept can be adequately compared. In studying Georg Hegel, John Stuart Mill, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche, it is evident that each takes a supreme stance on morality. Therefore, I propose the question, “Is it morally permissible to commit suicide”? By analyzing each philosophical approach to this question, each philosopher’s notion on the concept will be revealed.

However, as Durkheim attempted to restrict this definition to suicide being actions intended to result in loss of life, many disagreed with him (3). He then decided to search for a new definition of suicide. Digging deeper, he filed through cases deemed suicide that included actions of heroism such as a father jumping in the path of a bullet for his son. Such cases reveal a situation in which death is not desired by the individual but is nonetheless an inevitable consequence of the actions taken. This sort of suicide, according to Durkheim, should be known by any other name under the same broad term. Suicide can be divided into smaller categories. The first subcategory defined by Durkheim is Egoistic Suicide. An individual who commits a suicide of this distinction is considered to feel detached from society and thus separated from life’s meaning. He further explains by saying, a society with a focus on human interaction and involvement produces a value on the individual’s existence and contribution. If the society lacks human interaction and involvement, a low value is placed on an individual’s existence and contribution. Thus, Egoistic Suicide occurs when an individual has placed a low value on

suicide but for the purposes of this paper being succinct it shall discuss: (1) the doctrine of

According to Durkheim’s theory, society can play a part in suicide rates due to strenuous social change which lead to unclear norms in a community. When this emotional strain leads to suicide, Durkheim would explain this as anomic suicide. First Nation groups experienced this during the time of residential schools. Aboriginal people were forced to rapidly change their ways

Durkheim defines fatalistic suicide as the results of “excessive regulation”. In many traditional societies, fatalism was served as an illustration of suicide; Durkheim was faced with the problem that even in societies which have an abundance of social capital, individuals, even so, kill themselves. For example, the conditions which many African men and women had to endure during the time of slavery may have made individuals feel that the only way to escape was through suicide. Since the many men and women would consider themselves to be in a hopeless position with a condemned fate or immediately doomed to be a slave. Fatalism focuses on high regulation and low integration to help prevent this suicide from continuing on, individuals can stop reverting to the old way of thinking things. Racism is old and a worn-out way of thinking. People should embrace everyone and increase integration amongst societies. By incorporating culture and different views. With this approach fatalistic suicide will slowly decrease and consolidate a future of involvement and authority for people to improve their

Traditionally, suicide was thought to be a purely individual decision but French sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized that the phenomenon had a social dimension. He believed in the influence of society on the individual and that if anything can explain that relation, it is suicide. His use of the data of suicide, not specific cases and reports, to study the societal trends reveals his true subject of study: society as a whole and its role in the individual experience. Durkheim uses the study of suicide via the quantitative methodological approach as a tool to study society as a broader whole.

In his work On Suicide that was published originally in 1897, Durkheim addresses four specific forms and triggers of suicide. These are not considered to be ideal types in his belief but they can be measured in social situations (Walsh, 27/09/16, s. 6-8). It is within all of these four extreme types that suicide rates are the highest. The first of these is named egoistic suicide. According to Durkheim, egoistic suicide occurs when an individual is not integrated or invested in society at all, their life is overly individualistic. This form of suicide and individuality can be associated with the term organic solidarity. Organic solidarity is used in more modern, industrialized organized societies where the individual starts to see themselves as unique and the focal point of importance rather than being connected to this large conglomerate of people. An egoistic person does not affiliate strongly with any form of institution that would offer stability or community in their life. He often associates egoistic suicide with religious affiliations, especially Protestantism (Durkheim, 2006: 156). Due to the core values of the Protestant religion being on the emphasis of individualism and interpreting the sacred texts on your own, there is a gap

Durkheim does not see egoism, altruism, anomie and fatalism as types of suicide, but types of social structure that highlight the presence or lack of integration and regulation. It must be stressed that this excess/lack of integration and regulation are not seen as direct causes of suicide, rather Durkheim sees a number of voluntary deaths in society as inevitable; integration and regulation are merely prophylactic to suicidal impulses, which when taken to excess or dramatically reduced, fail to act as a preventative, and so suicides occur. This clarification is an important strength of Durkheim’s theory: it allows the biography of the individuals who kill themselves to vary, while still explaining underlying pressures/lack of to explain their deaths, and the varying suicide rates between groups.

Throughout this essay, we will be looking a Durkheim’s analysis of suicide and whether his ideas on suicide were right in his time, and whether they are still relevant in today’s society. Emile Durkheim described ‘suicide’ as a term “applied to any death which is the direct or indirect result of a positive or negative act accomplished by the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result” (Durkheim, Suicide: a Study in Sociology, originally published 1897, 1970). Positive acts were acts that were undertaking with the intention to produce death. Negative acts were actually the distinct lack of survival acts undertaken, with the knowledge that without these acts, death would be the result. As far as Durkheim was concerned, although suicide itself is a very individual act, the reasoning behind suicide was due to predominantly social factors (Durkheim 1970, p44). Suicide was sociological, not psychological. His research was based not on the personality traits of those who had committed suicide, but instead at the suicide rates of different countries compared to the social factors that link the countries together (Durkheim 1970, p40).

I have chosen to do research on Émile Durkheim because of the fact that he is considered one of the "founding fathers" of modern sociology and, because of his research on how industrialized societies caused it’s people to become unhappy and resulted in higher suicide rates as compared to less industrialized societies. This work of his is called Suicide and it grabbed my attention from the moment I found out about it. To me Suicide is such an intriguing research study and I would have never imagined that a technologically advanced and modern society would play such a big part in contributing to the suicide rate increasing within a society. Aside from that, just the sheer fact that Durkheim is an important contributor to the discipline of sociology makes him quite interesting to want to research. In the end, the information I learn from this research can help me better understanding the discipline of sociology by exposing me to the theories and the work of a well known and important sociologist. By exploring Durkheim’s work, I am opening doors that will lead me into the sociological world, which will connect me to other sociological topics and theorists, furthering my knowledge on the subject.