legal, moral and ethical question...?

Question

(NB: this was a real case and a question on a legal exam)
A huge storm has sunk a ship. Only 4 people have survived. You 2 men and a boy. The lifeboat you are all in is empty, it has lost its radio and all of the survival kit. There is no food on board, nothing for you to fish with and the waters to deep to fish anyway.
You've been adrift for 18 days. water is getting low and can not support all 4 of you. If you do not eat you and the 2 other men will die within the next 4 days. The boy is not as strong as a full grown male so is in a much weaker condition and is unlikely to survive the longer than the next day. If he dies of natural causes you will not be able to eat the body. If you eat, the 3 of you will survive another 8 days just enough time for the three of you to reach dryland and live.
what would you do?
Is it immoral to kill one to save 3?
Is a defence of necessity justified in law or is it the duty of all to die?
(only answer with legal, moral or ethical arguments)

READ THE QUESTION! you can not get beries! your at sea! in the situation there is totally no way to fish! if you kill anyone else the boy will die anyway as he is to far gone. If you just let the boy die you can not eat him so all 4 of you will die.
Respond only with legal, moral and ethical arguments for killing the boy or for all of you dying. The question isnt about anything else!

this is not a "what i would do" question. this is about morality, ethics and should people be prosecuted for saving their lives...

is no 1 inteligent enough to post an argument! The 1st 1 to give a sound argument and not rubbish like "id pray" or "it deppends whose waters your in" or "how do they know they are 8 days from home" will get the points! Is it moral to just let 3 people die?

Answer 1

You should kill the boy. Didn't something like this happen in a coal mine accident? Some old coal miners gave their oxygen to a younger, more healthy man because they knew he could survive if they did so.

Answer 2

They did not choose to become adrift, and to be honest this is a no win situation. If there is nothing aboard the lifeboat, there is nothing anybody can do(im sorry if ive completely missed the point here!!) Like it's a near on impossiblilty to put something there thats not..

Ok so If the boy dies so be it because there is nothing the others can physically do to prevent this, so in my view it is not 'Murder' its inevitable. Its all about survival and how can the human body survive without water at least? I would rather die knowing that I didn't eat the boy, than to live and have to go on with the guilt over what i did to survive.
(that is a question of morals) If I were to carry on with this I would be here all night.. hope this gives u an insight into my mind

Answer 3

Ends do not justify means. It is the duty of all to live or to die together. The law would regard the killing of the boy as murder. Each life is of equal value. There aren't any moral arguments to consider, only legal ones. The law should already have embraced any moral/ethical issues when it was being framed. Another way of putting this, is that, if its illegal, its also immoral.

Answer 4

This is a very tough question Legal - Its illegal to kill the boy. Moral - Its immoral to kill the boy. Ethical - Its unethical to kill the boy .But its human nature for its own survival to kill the boy if you had not done then the other 2 men would have . Don't ever post such questions its too .....

Answer 5

This reminds me of the movie Saw/ Saw 2.
It is immoral to kill your own kind, especially the one that is small and helpless, irrespective of whether you would conform to the nature's survival of the fittest 'rule'.
It might happen in the animal kingdom, but thatswhy humans class themselves as the most advanced and ethical kind. Furthermore, the guilt is something humans couldn't live with, so even if the killing occured, one couldn't carry on with normal life knowing they killed. If the guilt kicks in, it is a clear indication that the decision to kill was immoral. Whether the actions should be justified, that I cannot answer, and wouldn't like to be in the jury.

Answer 6

its only illegal if you get caught, so the arguement there is which one of the gits you are with is a legal, moral, and ethical jerk. He could suffer a fatal accident before you get to land too if he doesnt eat he will die anyway so he cant tell on you for a movie deal and immunity, or can he? As for morals and ethics, well, they dont really count for people who dont have food, they are just things that well fed and watered people have invented so life can be lived in a civilized way.

Answer 7

when you are in dire need to survive , everything is legal ... but then again if you live , can you live with the guilt , id rather die than feel guilty of Wong choices that i made...

because eventually i will be back to the home land or dry land , and all the laws and what is legal will make me realize all the heinous acts i commit ed in the name of survival... so i guess no answer to that ??? how about you , you must have an idea what will you do ?

Answer 8

Its immoral to kill, how do the people in the boat know it will take them 8 days to reach dry land ? what if a shipping vessel come by and rescues them in 2 days? after 3 days of not eating your appetite is gone so there is no intense hunger just a feeling of weakness so even if the wanted to eat the boy how would they do it? do they have knives to cut him up, who has the energy to kill the boy?

Answer 9

There is no dilemma,moral or legal or anything else.

You cannot not kill any one to suit your own ends. You can only kill a person if he is about to kill you. If you die as a result, so be it.

Unless of course you are an Israeli, in which case you can argue, fully supported by Bush, that you are entitled to kill 500 Lebanese and utterly destroy their country, because the Hezbollah in their midst took two of your soldiers and wish to exchange them against the 200 of theirs you took earlier.

Answer 10

As a mother my instinct would be to protect the boy but as a human, my instinct is to survive, however I have to be able to live with myself afterwards and I don't think I could internally justify killing another human in order to save myself. If he died naturally then I would risk eating him as at that point I would have nothing to lose and if it kept me going for just a bit longer, maybe everything to gain!