had a reasonable worry: “If these men are not tried for murder, we are giving carte blanche to every ship’s captain, whenever he runs low on provisions, to eat his cabin boy.” 10
The Anonymous Ferry Killer
With Stephens, Dudley had murdered an innocent boy. In most normal circumstances murder is unconscionable. But although Dudley was tried and found guilty of the crime, this case tends to evoke mixed feelings. While some will think murder unacceptable whatever the circumstances, others will have considerable sympathy for Dudley’s predicament. If asked why, they’ll say something like “well, the cabin boy was going to die anyway, so what harm was done?”
Or, to put it in more formal if rather heartless terms, many,probably most, people seem to recognize a rationale, a moral rationale to moving from a Pareto inefficient to a Pareto efficient state of affairs. This seems to be part of our moral grammar. Before Dudley orchestrated the killing of the cabin boy, all four men were dying. The cabin boy would have died anyway: his death allowed others to survive.
Their lot was improved and no one was made worse off. So Dudley’s actions seem at least excusable.
There are other equally dramatic examples with a parallel moral structure. Take, for example, the killing that occurred just off the coast of Belgium on the evening of March 6, 1987. The killer has not been publicly named: he later confessed to the act, but was never charged. The authorities must have judged that, in the circumstances, this was a justified killing, and not only should there be no trial, but the identity of the killer should remain secret.
However, we have some details of the deed. It was the night that the Herald of Free Enterprise , a car and passenger ferry, capsized. Almost two hundred people, passengers and crew, lost their lives. The ship had been in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge and was due to make the short crossing to Dover on Britain’s southern coast. The cause of the accident was a catastrophic human error: a crew member on duty had fallen asleep and the bow doors hadn’t been closed. Within ninety seconds of leaving the harbor, the ship began to list. Within another minute the ship was plunged into darkness. Most of those who died were trapped inside and suffered hypothermia.
A coroner’s inquest took place in October 1987. Numerous witnesses were called to give evidence, but the most unexpected testimony came from an army corporal. He claimed that with dozens of other people he was at the bottom of a rope ladder, all of them in the icy water. However, the ladder, theirroute to safety, was blocked by a young man. He was paralyzed either with fear, or cold (or perhaps with both), and appeared unable to move up or down the ladder. With time running out, the corporal shouted for him to be pushed off. He was, and was never seen or heard from again. The way was open for others to clamber up the ladder and to safety.
Again, callous though it sounds, the man on the rope ladder was not made worse off by being pushed to his death: he was soon going to die in any case and by blocking the escape route he would cause the deaths of fellow passengers. The decision to prosecute neither the corporal nor the person who actually carried out the deed must have been underpinned by Pareto considerations. In accepting (if we do) that the corporal had not acted immorally, we are conceding that there are some occasions when killing someone intentionally is not wrong.
Maltese Dilemma
There have been parallel mountaineering cases where two men are connected by a rope, and to survive one needs to cut loose the other (essentially condemning this second person to their death). 11 And there are fictional cases, too. In the book, and movie, Sophie’s Choice , Sophie was forced by a Nazi officer to choose life for one of her children and death for the other. If she refused to pick, both would be sent to the gas chamber. She chose her son—the
The Anonymous Ferry Killer
With Stephens, Dudley had murdered an innocent boy. In most normal circumstances murder is unconscionable. But although Dudley was tried and found guilty of the crime, this case tends to evoke mixed feelings. While some will think murder unacceptable whatever the circumstances, others will have considerable sympathy for Dudley’s predicament. If asked why, they’ll say something like “well, the cabin boy was going to die anyway, so what harm was done?”
Or, to put it in more formal if rather heartless terms, many,probably most, people seem to recognize a rationale, a moral rationale to moving from a Pareto inefficient to a Pareto efficient state of affairs. This seems to be part of our moral grammar. Before Dudley orchestrated the killing of the cabin boy, all four men were dying. The cabin boy would have died anyway: his death allowed others to survive.
Their lot was improved and no one was made worse off. So Dudley’s actions seem at least excusable.
There are other equally dramatic examples with a parallel moral structure. Take, for example, the killing that occurred just off the coast of Belgium on the evening of March 6, 1987. The killer has not been publicly named: he later confessed to the act, but was never charged. The authorities must have judged that, in the circumstances, this was a justified killing, and not only should there be no trial, but the identity of the killer should remain secret.
However, we have some details of the deed. It was the night that the Herald of Free Enterprise , a car and passenger ferry, capsized. Almost two hundred people, passengers and crew, lost their lives. The ship had been in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge and was due to make the short crossing to Dover on Britain’s southern coast. The cause of the accident was a catastrophic human error: a crew member on duty had fallen asleep and the bow doors hadn’t been closed. Within ninety seconds of leaving the harbor, the ship began to list. Within another minute the ship was plunged into darkness. Most of those who died were trapped inside and suffered hypothermia.
A coroner’s inquest took place in October 1987. Numerous witnesses were called to give evidence, but the most unexpected testimony came from an army corporal. He claimed that with dozens of other people he was at the bottom of a rope ladder, all of them in the icy water. However, the ladder, theirroute to safety, was blocked by a young man. He was paralyzed either with fear, or cold (or perhaps with both), and appeared unable to move up or down the ladder. With time running out, the corporal shouted for him to be pushed off. He was, and was never seen or heard from again. The way was open for others to clamber up the ladder and to safety.
Again, callous though it sounds, the man on the rope ladder was not made worse off by being pushed to his death: he was soon going to die in any case and by blocking the escape route he would cause the deaths of fellow passengers. The decision to prosecute neither the corporal nor the person who actually carried out the deed must have been underpinned by Pareto considerations. In accepting (if we do) that the corporal had not acted immorally, we are conceding that there are some occasions when killing someone intentionally is not wrong.
Maltese Dilemma
There have been parallel mountaineering cases where two men are connected by a rope, and to survive one needs to cut loose the other (essentially condemning this second person to their death). 11 And there are fictional cases, too. In the book, and movie, Sophie’s Choice , Sophie was forced by a Nazi officer to choose life for one of her children and death for the other. If she refused to pick, both would be sent to the gas chamber. She chose her son—the
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