Explaining Suicide from the Viewpoint of Ethics

Introduction: Suicide occurs in people of any age and background, which negatively affects families and communities. According to the statistics provided by the World Health Organization, suicide is the cause of death of more than 700,000 people in the world, seventy-seven percent of which occur in low- and middle-income countries. Therefore, suicide has become an international problem in global health. There is a main moral issue regarding suicide, and that is whether suicide is morally permissible or not, and if so, under what circumstances? Therefore, the authors of the present study decided to examine suicide through the view point of ethics. Materials and Methods: The research was a review method, in order to achieve the goal of the research, in addition to electronic education books and virtual education in this field, articles related to the research keywords from 2004 to 2022 from the databases of Elsevier, Proquest, Pubmed, Researchgate, Science direct, was reviewed. Conclusion: According to ethical codes, each person has independence and autonomy. An autonomous and independent person has the possibility to make any decision, provided that his decision does not lead to harm to others or damage to the natural environment. Therefore, according to ethical codes, a person can decide for his life, he can even commit suicide.