ABSTRACT
Holland’s famous paper about suicide (Holland, 1969) begins by making a distinction between the questions: ‘Is arsenic poisonous?’ and ‘Is suicide all right or not?’ Holland thinks that whereas the question about arsenic is susceptible of an answer which, as he says, would be the answer to the question, the question about suicide cannot be answered so easily. In the case of arsenic he writes, ‘the question what it is, and the question whether it is poisonous, are separable: you can know that arsenic is poisonous without having analysed its nature’ (p. 32). In relation to suicide he writes, ‘to know or believe that suicide is objectionable is to have analysed its nature or construed its significance in one way rather than another’ (p. 32). Though he is primarily concerned with the ethico-religious problems raised by suicide, with the question, that is, of whether it is right or wrong, Holland thus embarks first on an exploration of what suicide is. He writes: ‘I do not think it is just one thing and I do not expect to get very far with the question’ (p. 32).
