ABSTRACT
Emile Durkheim's Suicide is a classic of sociology and is the starting point in a discussion of the sociology of elective death. According to contemporary psychology, suicide the act and the thought is a complication of psychiatric conditions, most often mood disorders. Suicidality, as it is called, is a diagnosis and in the main a symptom of depression. Suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of religious society, domestic society and political society. The root cause of increased suicide rates in the modern world is the growing disintegration of elements and a general attenuation of social ties. Among modern philosophical perspectives, that of Camus is especially notable for its insight into the depth dimension of suicide. In the case of the mentally competent adult, voluntary death is not a product of causal forces but a way of coming to meaningful terms with ones existential condition.
