Hello, if you are reading this then i thank you already
for taking your time to help.
I was assigned to Pick a philosopher (Jeremy Bentham in my case)
and write an essay on what i believe his judgement would be the on
the Case On Spulucean Explorers.
I will sum up both Jeremy Bentham, and the case for you.
Jeremy Bentham - Utilitarianism, which is the idea that laws are
made for the purpose of creating the greatest happiness for the
majority of people.
-The Spulucean explorers is a case where 4 men in a cave need
food to survive one, they eat one of them, and get death penalty,
later appealed to 6 months.
Thanks, and here's my essay
Jeremy Bentham-
The utilitarianisms reason for why laws are made is for the
purpose of these laws achieving the greatest good for the greatest
number of people, because that lets pleasure and happiness succeed
in greater numbers of people than comparing to the number of people
that will have to endure pain. By simply understanding “The
Case of the Speluncean Explorers” it can be determined that the
purpose of utilitarianism had succeeded, in the way the judges
final decision on appeal was to only sentence to 6months opposed to
the capital punishment.
Since Jeremy Bentham had been an advocate of utilitarianism it
can be assumed logically that his judgement call on the situation
of the cave explorers would have been supportive on the fact that
judge exempted the death penalty and gave a much lesser harsher
sentencing of 6months. This can be proved in two perspectives.
First let us examine perspective (a), the view of the cave
explorers. Having 4 explorers fall victim to this situation leads
all of them being in a case where they are experiencing pain, due
to hunger, discomfort and desperation for escape. Knowing the
potential outcome of their future it can be added that
physiological pain had been also another factor, because of their
understanding that they would not survive the 3 weeks that it will
take for the cave to be re-opened without any source of food. With
that, the group comes to the conclusion that one must be sacrificed
in order to save the others. While still examining
perspective (a), it is known that 1 person must go through pain in
order for the other 3 in the group to seek happiness (under the
circumstance, being saved and having some food is happiness). And
so the utiliarianistic approach works in this situation. It is safe
to say that Jeremy Bentham would happily agree with the judgement
of the men to give up one, in order to have happiness for the other
3 majority, and he would be pleased with the judgement that the
court had ruled to give them a lesser harsh punishment for breaking
law because of this strange circumstance in which they had no other
choice.
Perspective (b) looks upon the issue a little differently
because of this perspective looking beyond the 4 men, and how this
would impact the outside world after they are rescued and the world
finding out that one had to be killed to save the three. First of
all, it can be said that the majority of the families will be
pleased of the outcome because of their loved one being alive vs.
the only family (the family of Parker) losing their loved one. The
three families is greater in numbers of happiness vs. the
pain of the one family, so Jeremy Bentham would be pleased and
would judge this as the right thing to do in this scenario where
the families feelings and pain over pleasure are taken into
accountability. But also the public's view (different then
the families) might go two ways. The public might either be
appalled and disgusted by the way these three men acted, and how
the court reacted to this situation with such minor final
punishment, which would ultimately cause pain and frighten the
majority of the public opposed to happiness. Or they might be
pleased by understanding that under a situation of crisis the judge
takes into consideration the rationale decisions people must take
in order to save themselves, which would create the greatest amount
of pleasure and happiness to the public. Since the laws are made
for the people in order to ensure that they are happy (in a
utilitarianism government), and ultimately they are made by the
people because it is for their happiness and they know what would
make them the most happiest, it can be determined that the public
would be happy and satisfied with the final outcome of the
situation and ruling because they know under odd circumstances they
must not fear breaking the law in order to save themselves.
Since the reaction of the public would most likely be the
majority of people being happy with the judge's decision and the
way the explorers acted, we can conclude that Jeremy Bentham for
either or situation, ( Perspective (a) or perspective (b) Jeremy
Bentham would be pleased with the final judgements of how
everything had unfolded.