Abstract

Near the end of the fifth book of Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle has a brief discussion of suicide, to illustrate the question of whether one can wrong one's self. Suicide, he declares, is not enjoined by law, and what law does not enjoin, it forbids. Thus the suicide does do wrong – but to whom or what? Surely the polis, not himself . δι κα πλις ζημιο, κα ις τιμα πρσεστι τ αυτν διαφθεραντι ς π πλιν δικοντι