is intuitively rational for men to want felicity and to fear death most. Aristotle Aristotle in his 'discussion of courage, maintains that committing suicide to avoid pain or other undesirable circumstances is a cowardly act. In a later chapter [of Nichomachean Ethics], he further argues that suicide is unlawful and is an act committed against the interests of the state.' Neutral and situational stances Honor Japan has a form of suicide called seppuku, which is considered an honorable way to redeem oneself for transgressions or personal defeats. It was widely accepted in the days of the Samurai and even before that. It was generally seen as a privilege granted only to the samurai class; civilian criminals would thus not have this 'honor' and be executed. In this historical perspective, suicide reflects a cultural view of suicide as noble, acceptable, and even brave, rather than cowardly and wrong. Utilitarianism Utilitarianism can be used as a justification for or as an argument against suicide. For example, through Jeremy Bentham's hedonistic calculus, it can be concluded that although the death of a depressed person ends their suffering, the person's family and friends may grieve as well, and their pain may outweigh the release of depression of the individual through suicide. Arguments that suicide is permissible There are arguments in favor of allowing an individual to choose between life and death by suicide. Those in favor of suicide as a personal choice reject the thought that suicide is always or usually irrational, but is instead a solution to real problems; a line of last resort that can legitimately be taken when the alternative is considered worse. They believe that no being should be made to suffer unnecessarily, and suicide provides an escape from suffering. Idealism Herodotus wrote: "When life is so burdensome, death has become for man a sought-after refuge". Schopenhauer affirmed: "They tell us that suicide is the greatest act of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person." Schopenhauer's main work, The World as Will and Representation, occasionally uses the act in its examples. He denied that suicide was immoral and saw it as one's right to take one's life. In an allegory, he compared ending one's life, when subject to great suffering, to waking up from