Cultural Evolution and Suicide (IN: Suicide and Self-Damaging Behavior: a Sociobiological Perspective)

This chapter discusses the impact of learning, cognition, technology & culture on the determination of suicide. The author asserts developed human cognitive & learning abilities may in part account for the uniqueness of human suicide in the animal kingdom. He hypothesizes that suicide may have begun to occur as various technologies for effecting death proliferated, & with the knowledge that we have the capacity to effect our own deaths. (VM)