Spelunkers Case

The surviving members of Spelunkers should not be charged with murder based on the dire circumstance they faced and the decision they made under time pressure by their inner drivers of human nature. Four members of Spelunkers went on expenditure to climb mountain and ended up with exploring cave instead. Unfortunately, they were trapped in the cave without any food supplies because they only prepared sufficient food supplies for the mountain-climbing. After being desperately waiting for starving to death, they made an emotional disturbing decision and agreed upon that they would kill and eat one of the members for the last resort; as a result, they did kill one of the members and eat him, and three Spelunkers survived
In the case of Spelunkers, they had to make decision with limited resource and information, along with empty stomach; they probably could be suffering from emotional and extreme mental distress and anxiety. It is impossible for them to make any better decision which is better than they had come up with; furthermore, the decision they made have demonstrate a basic element of human behavior. Striving to survive is not only the basic elements of human behavior; it is also the driving force for any living creature. It is the human nature for a person to make every effort for survival. Abraham Maslow describes that air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans in his famous paramedic structure of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs . Therefore, in the consideration to the preservation of the human lives and for more people to survive, the Spelunkers made the decision to kill and eat one person in order to sustain three others. Actually the time period demonstrated how Spelunkers were willing to live out hunger to its limit before making such a dreadful and unfortunate decision. Although it morally wrong for them to kill Paul and to eat him, it seems that the moral value of letting four people die as opposed to one cannot compare to simply sacrificing Paul for the good of the others in the extreme circumstance. Therefore, the spelunkers