@freemo I would say yes and no, it depends. You can't tell if a treatment is working out or not. There are studies, right, but under which circumstances were they been done?

@freemo So at the end, I think it's not possible to measure happiness at all. Because it means something else for everybody. But what we have, are different kind of needs. Like food, water, a roof over your head, someone to talk to, to be left alone when you need it. Maybe we have to get rid of the perspective of the right to be happy how everyone individually things it should be. But more like, does it hurt you when it is like that. I don't know.

@mundauf Just because t means something else for everyone doesnt mean it is unquantifiable. I mean one person may like grapes another person hates them. That just means giving one person grapes increases happiness and giving it to the other person does not.

I mean if i could scan your brain i could measure how happy you are in theory right?

@freemo I don't believe that this will ever be possible because we always have to interpret in words and have to speak to each other. And than we argue again if this picture of the brain really means that.

@mundauf Well that may be. the brain is a mystery and it is hard to speculate.

@mundauf I agree both points are valid potentially. I think im just not entierly clear what @psychwede is arguing for. Which is why i keep pressing. I think, but I may be wrong, that his premise is something like "we cant know the consequence of our actions and thus shouldnt act". If that is the case it doesnt seem prudent. But im not trying to disagree with him, just press him for a the detail so i could better understand his stance.

But to answer your question.. should someone be allowed to kill themselves if there are treatments.

Well for me this goes slightly beyond topic because of the word "allowed". I think what is allowed isnt exactly the same as what is moral.

For example I believe in body autonomy. To that means the right to choose what happens to your body, good or bad, is yours alone. So by that logic id argue that even if it is not moral to allow someone to kill themselves they should still be allowed to do so.

But i could also simply argue that body autonomy, even if it fails in individual cases, is critical for a moral populous as a whole. So I could argue that int he big picture it would still be the more moral law to pick.

@freemo Yes morality. I picked that, let's call it case study, because it's the edge we are dealing right now when it comes to debates about war, death penalty, abortion, and suicide or the right to die on you own terms. I think maybe we have to adjust our moral by admitting that we do harm each other because everybody has good intentions. And feels free to to what he wants because he can argue.

I don't know of this leads us to something, but I would like to have a try.