 In recent years, this ‘two-state’ requirement (that death can only be judged rational or irrational if it is possible to compare the state of being alive with the state of being dead) has been widely rejected. In particular, the rationality of the decision to end one’s life need not be construed in terms of the value of being alive versus the value of being dead (Luper 2009, 82–88). Rather, the rationality of suicide concerns a choice about the value or quality of different lives one could have: a shorter life, whose duration is truncated by suicide, versus the longer life an individual would be most likely to have if they forego suicide. As Richard Brandt has put it, what those contemplating ending their lives are considering are different durations or courses of their lives: