Suicide Cynicism

One of the most frequently-encountered reactions to antinatalistic moral theory is “suicide cynicism”. We have to do with this latter in each case where there is retorted to a person protesting against existence something like: “So why don’t you just kill yourself, then?” We are justified in describing this attitude as cynicism because, in the first place, we are retained within our existences by powerful bio-psychical bonds that lie far beyond the power of our wills and, in the second place, no one ever began to exist by his own will or request. Schopenhauer has an apt reply to this “suicide cynicism”: “But who would choose to linger in life, life being what it is, if death were just a little less terrible than it is?”