Excerpt from the Speluncean Explorers: “It seems that in dealing with this extraordinary case the jury and the trial judge followed a course that was no only fair and wise, but the only course that was open to them under the law. The language of our statute is well known: “Whoever shall willfully take the life of another shall be punished by death.” This statute permits of no exception applicable to this case, however our sympathies may incline us to make allowance for the tragic situation in which these men found themselves.” This sums up my thoughts on the Spelunkers and how their situation transcribed. Often times is the law we come across many decisions that are fair or just but may not be both. It is hard to not have empathy for the situation of the men but we can not discredit, as legal scholars, the fact that the law is broken and go against stature for certain situations. The course of action that is laid out for us does not give much room for exceptions and tragedy always makes us inclined to change our perception on legal turn outs. So I wonder, can there be legally moral exceptions to the laws we already have? And, how would we determine such differentiation?
(for last week)
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Since when did America become so cold-hearted? This country was built upon second chances and differing opinions with the old sovereigns. It seems to me, law is becoming what everyone ran from 200+ years ago. It's getting to a point where politicians and law makers write up these verbose laws full of loopholes in the governments favor. Obviously, the spelunkers was a hypothetical case, but that kind of stuff happens all the time, in centre county or elsewhere. We also have to see that law as the government sees it is made up. It's a bunch of words on a piece of paper that the government uses (along with brute force and unusual punishments) as a suppressor of the people. As the government sees it, morality has been put in prison along with all the other nonviolent "criminals" that take up 85% of our jails.
ReplyDeleteI think in some cases that there can be moral exceptions to the law, the spelunker case being one of them. The people were stranded with no way to survive. If people are stranded with no way to survive and someone dies it should not be a crime to resort to cannibalism. I can understand them being charged if people are stranded and some of the people start killing off everyone so they can survive. However, if the person dies of natural causes I do not think they should be guilty of anything. This would be one example where i feel there should be a moral exception to the law.
ReplyDeleteI personally do not feel as though there is room in the law for moral exceptions. Yet at the same time I would not have punished said spelunkers because I view this case as more a positive law vs. basic universal rights issue than a positive law vs. morals issue. If I recall correctly, I find myself agreeing with Thomas Hobbes on issues such as this because Hobbes always claimed that once we as people enter a society, we give up all our rights to the sovereign in exchange for protection. However, if the sovereign decides to punish us via execution then we still reserve the right to fight back, despite having previously giving up all right to the sovereign. Hobbes' reasoning behind this was that we never give up the right of survival, no matter the cost. So I don't think that we should legally take any action against the spelunkers because the issue of survival is involved, and not because of our moral connection with them.
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