The philosopher Owen Flanagan has pointed out that when Hamlet poses the question that has become the single most powerful query of all English literature, “he is, of course, contemplating suicide.” For reasons too complex to enumerate, when modern-day researchers think of a suicidal agent, they imagine a Hamletian character who struggles with the question of whether it is best to be or not to be; and when they are called upon to define ‘suicide’ they often define it, perhaps inspired by Hamlet, in terms of a series of mental states—an inner mental monologue, really—that somehow express or represent the subject’s conscious intent to die. According to this contemporary understanding, people who commit suicide are all those who, like Hamlet, contemplate the meaning of the good life, consider their future prospects, realize that their current life is not worth living, and then consciously choose not to be—Hamlet’s unchosen path.

This intentional conception of suicide seems reasonable enough. It fits with our common folk intuitions about what suicide is and what it looks like. Yet, from a philosophical standpoint, it may be more problematic than we realize.

Consider, for instance, that a good number of suicides—including impulsive suicides, youth suicides, altruistic suicides, and the suicides of people with severe mental health problems—do not seem to involve a conscious intent to die. Yet, they are obviously suicides. How can this be?