Liberty Versus Life: Suicide in the Writings of Montesquieu

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Bréde et de Montesquieu (1689-1755), the French philosopher who had such an enormous impact on the American constitution through his theory of the separation of powers, had an unusually sympathetic view of suicide. Indeed, he is the only major thinker in Western history to have produced a sustained argument against St. Thomas Aquinas' enormously influential views on this subject. Yet few scholars have attempted to analyze this argument, and none to explain why it was so important to him to make it. This paper demonstrates that Montesquieu's support for suicide in desperate circumstances is inextricably associated with the love of liberty for which he is justly celebrated, having the potential to radically transform the way we look at suicide and suicidal ideation today.