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.