This book is not about the medical, psychological, psychiatric, sociological, statistical, or even theological aspects of suicide. It does not investigate the pathology of why some people kill themselves and it certainly does not attempt either to prevent or to encourage suicide. It is a book on the philosophy of suicide. It examines (1) the ontology of suicide, i.e., what suicide is from the perspective of being, and (2) the ethics of suicide, i.e., whether suicide ought to be morally permitted and what its effects in the world are when it is. In other words, it is about the "axiology," i.e., the "theory of the value" of suicide. Toward this end, it occasionally considers historical, biographical, and literary cases.

The main point is to argue that suicide ought not automatically to be seen as an expression of despair, but that some people have non-despondent, creative, altruistic, unselfish, or advantageous reasons for doing themselves in. The ancients knew this. Our culture has lost this insight in the meantime. Luft wants to recover it.