Utilitarian Analysis

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******* *********** Utilitarian Analysis PHIL-2306 The Queen versus Dudley and Stephens 03/05/2012 Outline: (1) A description of “The Lifeboat Case” is given by David Edmonds. (2) The definition of utilitarianism is used to analysis whether Dudley is guilty. (3) The case is analyzed according to utilitarian principles. Queen versus Dudley and Stephens, a famous real life story of a shipwrecked boat, happened in 19th century Britain. David Edmonds, who published an article called “R. v Dudley & Stephens,” describess the event in detail. The English yacht set sail on May 19, 1884 with a crew of four. The crew consisted of Tom Dudley, the captain, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks, and Richard Parker, the cabin boy, Edmonds Wrote: The four men had been in the middle of the Atlantic route from England to Australia when they sailed into a terrible storm and their yacht began to sink. They clambered into a life-boat. All they had to keep them going were two tins of turnips. On the 20th day they were close to starvation. Richard Parker was the youngest and the weakest, and was drifting in and out of consciousness. Captain Dudley thought there was the only one solution; one of them had to be sacrificed for food. He proposed they draw lots. Brooks objected. That night Dudley and Stephens stabbed Parker in the throat with a penknife. For four days, until they were finally rescued, Dudley, Stephens and Brooks fed off Parker’s carcass. Were Dudley and Stephens guilty of murder for killing Richard Parker? A utilitarian would say they were not guilty. According to Michael J. Sandel, “Consequentialist moral reasoning attempts to locate the morality of an act in the consequences and results.” This is the idea behind the philosophy of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, an 18th century English political philosopher, is the most
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