Law and Ethics

“Whoever shall willfully take the life of another shall be punished by death.” This statement is clear in its meaning , it is not a statement that can be argued or waived regardless of situations. That’s not the way the law works. In the case of the Donner Spelunkers we are asked to look at the difference between law and ethics and try to separate the two and choose one to side with. This is almost an impossible act considering that it is unethical to break the law. In this case the difference of the law and ethics could be argued either way. After carefully consideration of this case I have sided with the standing ruling. There are absolutely no ethical reasons why this group of men did what they did. It was morally wrong and can not be construed in any other way.

Let ‘s begin dissecting this case by looking at the possible ethical reasoning’s of this groups decisions. In Hadley Arkes’s First Things : An Inquiry into First Principals of Morals and Justice (1986), he talks about seven principals that can help you decide if something is valid morally, and how it pertains to the law. In the first point that Arkes talks about is how we decide if something is moral or immoral. Basically morality is a universal understanding. It differs from place to place, evolving and changing depending on culture and religion but it exists everywhere and influences everyone’s day to day decisions in some way or another. Some things are just considered morally unacceptable. Killing someone and then eating them simply for the self preservation of a group of people that are in a bad situation does not make it ok. There were four other members of the Donner Spelunkers society and no matter who ended up being chosen to die, it would have still been murder.

In this case it just happens that Whetmore was the one who came up with the idea to have a drawing to see who would sacrifice themselves for the rest of the group. However Whetmore also later withdrew himself from this idea and was...