It's not self-righteousness if it's true.
It cannot be true if it's based on theory. Unless you've been in a situation where it was either kill yourself or subject someone to a lonely life outside of what they're expecting and you made the choice to kill yourself, then anything you say is based on projection and assumption.
But when you're really there and faced with the emotions and mental instability you can't say. It's like how people are always quick to say "if I were [in dangerous confrontation with criminals] I'd just attack them and try and save the day!" It's easy to "Monday morning quarterback" like that and say things with the benefit of hindsight and not having the emotional rush.
But unless you're really there you cannot say because
in that situation emotions, rational thought and everything are running wild and going out the window. People who're suicidal even in "mundane" situations on Earth struggle with the decision to do it or not because killing yourself is fucking
hard to do because we all fear the unknown not to mention the discomfort and pain that comes with it. (Particularly in Jim's case where he doesn't seem to have many "painless" options.) Yes, many people do commit suicide but in a majority of cases it's more for a call for attention or help than an act to kill one's self and then there's, yes, those few cases where someone wants to kill themselves and does it in an absolute manner.
But here you are, mentally sound, sitting behind your computer inside a comfortable home with comfortable daily human interactions saying you'd, without question, throw yourself out an airlock rather than use skill and knowledge you have to wake another person up and lie to them about what happened. Right.
I'm not saying Jim makes the "right" call, but I also cannot say it was the "wrong" call, but then I also have the value of hindsight to know that had he not woken Aurora up he'd either have killed himself or been driven further-ly mentally unstable in the following year meaning the ship would have blown up and then everyone would have died.
But I can say he made a
human call. Not a
humane one but one that's understandably human because in extreme circumstances people do extreme things. And, yes, while he does "steal her life" -or rather the life she was expecting- she still had "a" life and presumably a happy one (though they presumably never had any children (hello vasectomy selection on the medical pod thing!)) and he doesn't manipulate or Stockholm her into falling for him. Sure, she interacts with him and falls for him because she has no other choice but it's not like he tying her up and physically forcing herself into anything, and as said above arranged/forced copulations have existed in our culture longer than they haven't and are still going on; so we're also looking at this with a 21st century, Western, viewpoint. Even some 21st Century Eastern viewpoints would see his "forced" copulation as being something of a societal norm, at least Aurora was given the advantage of freedom and choice as opposed to, "Here's your husband, we're getting some land and 50% share in the business in exchange. Deal. I did when I was your age."
So, no, you cannot say what you would do. I cannot say what
I would do because this is out of our experiences and we're not in the emotional mindset Jim would have been in. I'd like to say I'd tough it out and just live out my life alone, but I cannot say with certainty that I wouldn't wake up myself a companion if I had the skill to do so and I cannot say with certainty as someone who has coped with suicidal thoughts that I would or wouldn't kill myself.
It's impossible to know. Being
in a situation is different than observing it and then making second guesses after the fact.
So...people shouldn't be allowed to analyze the morality of a scenario unless they've directly experienced it?
Analyze the morality of it all you want, that's what the movie wants you to do. But what you cannot do is stand on your horse and say, "I'd kill myself rather than subject another person to this experience!" because you have no way of knowing that because your morals now in your comfortable life with regular human interaction would be very different in the situation the protagonist is in.