Cannibalism In The Queen V. Dudley And Stephens

In 1884 there was a historic court case called The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens that questioned how to define morality in extreme circumstances. In this situation, there were four men trapped at sea on a lifeboat. They were stranded for 20 days, most of which they spent without any food or water. On the 20th day, the men Dudley and Stephens killed one of their weaker companions, Richard Parker. They fed on his body for four days before they were rescued. Although it was determined that without feeding on Parker, all of the men would have died of starvation before they were rescued, Dudley and Stephens were found guilty of murder in a court of law (The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens, 4-7). The utilitarian framework of thinking supports the action of cannibalism in the case of The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens since the act of taking one life was able to save three lives. In “Principles of Morals and Legislation” Jeremy Bentham describes the principle of utility as the way to determine the morality of an action based off of …show more content…
Dudley and Stephens, is a moral decision. The principle of utility (or the Greatest Happiness Principle) allows that this choice was moral since it promoted more happiness than pain for the surviving men. Utilitarianism also supports this decision since the amount of happiness was greatest for the entire community that is involved. The cannibalistic act allowed for the happiness of the three surviving men as well as their entire families, while Parker had no family and was the only one involved that experienced pain. The pleasure of the men surviving was greater than the pain of Parker dying as was determined by Bentham’s method of analyzing the intensity, duration, certainty, and extent of these feelings. Therefore the act of cannibalism was a moral decision since the overall amount of pleasure produced was greater than the