Dying for the cause: the rationality of martyrs, suicide bombers and self-immolators

Title: Dying for the cause: the rationality of martyrs, suicide bombers and self-immolators
Creator: Greenland, Andrew; Proulx, Damon; Savage, David A.
Relation: Rationality and Society Vol. 32, Issue 1, p. 93-115
Publisher Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1043463119900327
Publisher: Sage
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2020
Description: This article explores the impact that belief in an infinite afterlife has on end-of-life decisions, specifically on those viewed at the extreme, such as martyrs, suicide bombers and self-immolators. We extend a simplified expected utility-based model to include variations of infinitely rewarding afterlife's and explore how this may impact the expected utility and rationality of earthly actions and decisions of individuals when the expected utility payoff is infinite. We show that the decision process for suicide and euthanasia is closely linked to martyrs, suicide bombers and self-immolators, such that all these individuals make rational decisions to regards to the end of their own life.
Subject: economics; martyrs; rationality; religon; self-immolation; suicide bombers
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1420436
Identifier: uon:37589
Identifier: ISSN:1043-4631
Language: eng
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