Suicide is devastating. It is an assault on our ideas of what living is about. In Contemplating Suicide Gavin Fairbairn takes a fresh look at suicidal self-harm. His view is distinctive in not emphasising external facts: the presence or absence of a corpse, along with evidence that the person who has become a corpse, intended to do so. It emphasises the intentions that the person had in acting, rather than the consequences that follow from those actions. Much of the book is devoted to an attempt to construct a natural history of suicidal self-harm and to examine some of the ethical issues...