ABSTRACT
Those who witness or come across a suicide, or what looks like a suicide, will be affected by it. Aside from the feelings, both physical and emotional, that they experience, they may suffer intellectual and moral turmoil as they attempt to wrestle with the dilemma of deciding how they should react, what they should do. Most will act immediately to do what they can to ‘help’ the suicider. However, those who have given some thought to the question of whether it is possible that death is something that a person could rationally want and set out to achieve, and/or to the possibility that death might realistically be in a person’s best interests, might pause, however briefly, before intervening, especially if the person they come across is well known to them. As a
result they may decide that intervention in the person’s act may not be helpful and decide to do nothing. However, I think this will be unusual, especially among those who have also thought about the range of aims that a person may have in mind when he behaves in apparently suicidal ways, and hence the number of acts that his suicidal actions may constitute.
