The Speluncean Explorers

The purpose of law is to protect civilized society from the threat which any individual may pose. I find it rediculous to claim that any of the four defendants poses any sort of threat on society. The choice the defendants made was one that the physicians, government officials, and ministers knew they might also make, hence their respective refusals to advise the explorers on their heavy question. No one among us can say what we would have done if placed in the predicament the defendednts found themselves in. None of us can say positively that we would answer to the negative. Common sense tells us that these unfortunate men have not committed a crime which is punishable, when we know we may have made the same choice ourselves. I conclude that the conviction should be set aside.

Not only did the manner in which the unfortunate men decided to adopt their idea have a sort of democratic notion to it, in that all members had to agree, but the casting of lots is in and of itself as fair and democratic a method of choosing one of the five as the situation would allow. Whetmore, who originally proposed the plan and the method of casting lots, tried to withdraw from the agreement when lots were about to be cast (citeing a desire to wait another week before carrying out the plan) but was charged with a “breach of faith” by his companions and had the die (with which the lots were being cast) thrown for him. When asked if he had any objections to the fairness of the throw, Whetmore said he had none. The posing of this question signifies that the members did not wish to target him in any way and truly wanted the lots to be cast fairly even if it meant their own life.

Furthermore, in a week’s time it was highly possible that they would all be dead. The physician had told them that they would not survive ten days. He had not told them how long they would survive. A week is obviously nearly ten days and thus the proposal to wait a week was illogical and could have easily been deemed by the members, probably acurately, as a momentary submission to weakness (or fear) on Whetmor