Morality of Self-Mutilation / Self-Injury

Something again blatantly stolen from elsewhere, but the writer and the responders bring up a few good points. Whether I agree or not is another matter of course, but I found them interesting to post:

Main question: Is Self-Mutilation/Self-Injury morally wrong?

Two replies:

QUOTE

I suppose the logic would be: it is wrong to kill others, it is wrong injure others and it is wrong to kill yourself, therefore it is wrong to injure yourself.

Some moral guidelines even hold than anything that causes harm to yourself, such as smoking or gluttony, is wrong so that would certainly extend to physical harm.

QUOTE

Morality and the concepts of right and wrong change depending on what point of view you apply so I'll provide a few different examples. From a Christian point of view, it is a sin, plain and simple. From Hindi point of view, it is a violation of the natural cycle of reincarnation and a failure to perform the spiritual duty you were intended to perform in this lifetime, and therefore is wrong. From a social point of view, many people consider suicide emotionally and psychologically harmful to the people who love the person who commits suicide and therefore is wrong.

The latter poster goes all the way into the suicide zone, which is taking it a little too far away from the topic, but he does have something I find interesting in his response.

Some religions would find nothing wrong with self injury in a certain setting (comes to mind that scene from the movie The Holy Grail, where those religious folks hit themselves with a board flourisse/laugh.gif

), self-chastising it is called then and practised in some monasteries still. Doing it to punish yourself, apparently in front of the Lord and the cleansing in mind, then it suddenly becomes ok.

As you can see from the word suddenly my opinion of it is clear; I don't agree with self-injury/mutilation.

However.. the question is: is it MORALLY wrong?

Let's look up the definition of the word: "in accord with right or good conduct", but yeah.. what IS right or good conduct. To one it means this, to another it means something else.

Anyway.. your opinions

Depends how you define morality...

It is stupid and wrong, but not necessarily "morally" wrong, from my impression morality has to do with society, so, as long as other people don't have to pay for your inflicted pain, stupidity, etc that's perfectly fine by me.

So cutting my hands and thus forcing others to help me would be morally wrong, doing the same on a deserted island it would be only my business.

Same for smoking and obesity, if the society doesn't have to pick up the tab that's something that's a personal issue otherwise is immoral. Also smoking and obesity are probably immoral in relation to the members of their family, usually parents are considered to have the moral obligation to take care of children and then have fun, if they have fun and as a result they can't take care of kids then it's an immoral thing to do. Same consideration goes for being negative examples to their kids and for spending money for unnecessary and even detrimental personal things instead of goods for their family.

I don't think it is morally wrong per se.
If it is done for pure attentionseeker in a way of shocking people, not so good.
But if it is done because someone is so deeply in psychiatric/psychological pain and knows no other way of relieving that pain, I don't think that could be labelled morally wrong. It is a survival mechanism then, which doesn't harm anyone else.
Some people just can't simply talk and ask for help.
I know most people don't understand and jugde it as a wrong behavior.
I see it as a "tool" to prevent worse things and to get help and better yourself.

"It's stupid and wrong" sounds to me like a bit too simple.