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Can our self-conscious minds save us from our selfish selves?
If animals aren’t capable of goal-directed suicide, how do we know they act directly, or indirectly with conscious intent, knowing, or believing that their actions are life-sustaining? In other words, are the actions of animals, or OUR subconscious minds teleological?
”In the late-19th century, the sociologist Émile Durkheim proposed that the term ‘suicide’ should be used only in cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act that the individual knows or believes will produce the intended result — death. Durkheim argued that conceiving a goal of this kind depends on the possession of a reflective form of consciousness that other animals lack — that the physiological capacities they possess are insufficient to this purpose. He concluded that true suicide, in its various forms, is a social condition of humans.”
