feotakahari

Finished? Good.

A lot of the things I could say about this story have already been said by wiser minds than me, but I want to pick at a specific argument by Justice Foster. His statements are convoluted and don’t lend themselves to direct quotation, but the gist is that you can’t punish people for breaking the law when the law was incapable of protecting them. In a normal situation, there are all manner of social institutions meant to preserve life and prevent situations where killing is necessary. None of those were available in an isolated cave, and killing turned out to be the only way any of the explorers could get out alive. In Foster’s terms, the “social compact” failed them, so they had to make up their own rules to survive long enough to return to society.

This may make intuitive sense at first glance, and it’s part of the basis behind self-defense laws. When someone’s coming at you with a knife, you may not have the time or the opportunity to call the police and resolve the situation without violence. The explorers had time to think, but starvation would have come for them long before the forces of law and order could, and their killing of Whetmore could be considered a necessary defense of their lives.

Now consider a different case. In Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman, the narrator relates the story of a group of people on a sinking boat. They don’t have enough life jackets for everyone, so a child gets to grab one first. An adult steals the child’s life jacket and lets her drown. He’s convicted of depraved-heart murder, and the narrator views this as a just consequence of his actions.

There are obvious differences between the two cases. As a Utilitarian, I have my own view on which differences matter, just as you may have yours. I simply wish to argue that Foster’s view is incomplete. If you think that the man on the boat deserved to be convicted, then there must be some moral principle that applies even when the law can’t save you and there’s no one you can rely on.