begin with the premise that life is objectively meaningless, and proceed to the question of why one should not just kill oneself; they then answer this question by suggesting that the individual has the power to give personal meaning to life. Stoicism Although George Lyman Kittredge states that "the Stoics held that suicide is cowardly and wrong," the most famous stoics—Seneca the Younger, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius—maintain that death by one's own hand is always an option and frequently more honorable than a life of protracted misery. The Stoics accepted that suicide was permissible for the wise person in circumstances that might prevent them from living a virtuous life. Plutarch held that accepting life under tyranny would have compromised Cato's self-consistency () as a Stoic and impaired his freedom to make the honorable moral choices. Suicide could be justified if one fell victim to severe pain or disease, but otherwise suicide would usually be seen as a rejection of one's social duty. Confucianism Confucianism holds that failure to follow certain values is worse than death; hence, suicide can be morally permissible, and even praiseworthy, if it is done for the sake of those values. The Confucian emphasis on loyalty, self-sacrifice, and honour has tended to encourage altruistic suicide. Confucius wrote, "For gentlemen of purpose and men of ren while it is inconceivable that they should seek to stay alive at the expense of ren, it may happen that they have to accept death in order to have ren accomplished." Mencius wrote: Other arguments David Hume wrote an essay entitled Of Suicide in 1755 (although it was not published until the year after his death, in 1777). Most of it is concerned with the claim that suicide is an affront to God. Hume argues that suicide is no more a rebellion against God than is saving the life of someone who would otherwise die, or changing the position of anything in one's surroundings. He spends much less time dismissing arguments that it is an affront to one's duty to others or to oneself. Hume claims that suicide can be compared to retiring from society and becoming a total recluse, which is not normally considered to be immoral. As for duty to self, Hume takes it to be obvious that there can be times when suicide is desirable, though he also thinks it ridiculous that anyone would consider suicide unless they first