What if survival meant killing and eating the flesh of one 's own camrade? Given the choice between starvation and cannibalism, how would one make a cogent decision? That is exactly what occurred in Professor Lon L. Fuller 's fictional, legal case titled, "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers." The investigation explores the circumstances involving the death of a cave-explorer, Roger Whitmore. In summary, five cave-explorers were trapped in a cave after being blocked by a landslide. Fortunately, these men carried a radio device with them in which they used to send a distress signal to a rescue team. After learning the it would take an additional ten days to come to their rescue, the men became concerned about the sustainability of life without
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This idea is equivalent to Jeremy Bentham 's theory of utilitarianism which states, that actions are right if they benefit the majority. In other words, it is the belief that individuals must do the most good for the greatest number of people. The single goal of utilitarianism is to increase pleasure and minimize pain. In Dudley and Stephens v the Queen, which is the true version that Fuller based this case on, three men were found guilty of murdering a fellow seaman, Parker, in order to save their own lives from starvation. They were found guilty of murder despite the fact that three lives were saved at the expense of one. To point to a more recent case, campaign activists were convicted in a court in 2015 for trespassing a protest that was held in the previous year, in which they blocked railway tracks that were used by crude oil trains in Everett, Washington (Wong, 1). They pleaded ‘necessity’ indicating that their acts, illegal as it may have been, were necessary to prevent the ‘greater’ harm of climate change. Although the Judge expressed sympathy to their cause, he was bound by the written law and therefore found them guilty. At any rate, it is evident that the philosophy of utilitarianism is undoubtedly flawed in itself. For example, it is safe to conclude that Bentham would have supported child labor and slavery, based on his philosophy because both produced little to no happiness for the family of the children and the slaves, but pleased employers, slave owners, and benefited society as a whole. John Stuart Mill, a philosopher that advocated for utilitarianism, describes the “Greatest Happiness Principle as actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Sheskin & Baumard, 4) Alas, that is essentially the problem
This idea is equivalent to Jeremy Bentham 's theory of utilitarianism which states, that actions are right if they benefit the majority. In other words, it is the belief that individuals must do the most good for the greatest number of people. The single goal of utilitarianism is to increase pleasure and minimize pain. In Dudley and Stephens v the Queen, which is the true version that Fuller based this case on, three men were found guilty of murdering a fellow seaman, Parker, in order to save their own lives from starvation. They were found guilty of murder despite the fact that three lives were saved at the expense of one. To point to a more recent case, campaign activists were convicted in a court in 2015 for trespassing a protest that was held in the previous year, in which they blocked railway tracks that were used by crude oil trains in Everett, Washington (Wong, 1). They pleaded ‘necessity’ indicating that their acts, illegal as it may have been, were necessary to prevent the ‘greater’ harm of climate change. Although the Judge expressed sympathy to their cause, he was bound by the written law and therefore found them guilty. At any rate, it is evident that the philosophy of utilitarianism is undoubtedly flawed in itself. For example, it is safe to conclude that Bentham would have supported child labor and slavery, based on his philosophy because both produced little to no happiness for the family of the children and the slaves, but pleased employers, slave owners, and benefited society as a whole. John Stuart Mill, a philosopher that advocated for utilitarianism, describes the “Greatest Happiness Principle as actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Sheskin & Baumard, 4) Alas, that is essentially the problem