Looking for a word... (1 Viewer)

[Mark Kalzer]

This is for LAW class. I'm looking for a specific word but I can't recall what it is.

In a hypothetical situation, say I've been stranded at sea with a group of people, no food, and the only way to survive is to sacrifice someone so that the rest can survive. The person we sacrifice is weak and near death already.

I'm told there's a word for this. Anyone know?

 

[Henry Gale]

Since you're a law student can I assume you've heard of CANNIBALISM?

Don't know how to say it in one word but, "We don't know how to fish" would also describe that situation.

 

[LewB]

LordOfTheFliesRationale ?

 

[Bill Williams]

There's a word that for me sums it up best, and I borrow a line from a song in Popeye:

"Food, food, food, everything is food!"

 

[Bill Kane]

The person we sacrifice is weak and near death already = homicide.

 

[Mark Kalzer]

...ahem...I do know what cannibalism is! I know homicide doesn't apply either since that word's been used to apply to all sorts of murders. I'm looking for something more specific to this situation. I don't think LordOfTheFliesRationale would belong on a formal report! Any other ideas?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

"Dinner"?

"Donner"?

 

[Keith Mickunas]

Mark, this sounds like a philosophy problem to me. I wouldn't be surprised if some philosopher wrote about this at some time and there's some term used to describe these kinds of situations. It falls under that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" area as well as "damned if you do, damned if you don't". I'd hunt down a philosophy major or some general philosophy texts to see if this is described.

You might also look in a thesarus under dilemna, conflict, and other such words.

 

[Patrick Sun]

"Unlucky"

"Weakocide"

"Bait"

"Short Straw Picker"

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

One possibility is MIGNONETTE. That was the name of a yacht that sank in the 1880s, and left a lifeboat full of people in exactly that situation you describe. They ended up killing and eating the cabin boy, was was already near death from drinking sea water. (And who, to be fair, was the idiot who had thrown the freshwater cask overboard in the mistaken belief that it could float and be retrieved later, and who also placed a quanity of raw turnips, instead of salted meat, aboard the lifeboat. )

The survivors were recused a mere four days after the killing, and were eventually tried. The case established precedents in common law and it has apparently been much discussed and inspired at least one full length book.

A phrase, rather than a single word, that refers to this sort of thing is "the custom of the sea". It was tacitly recognized that crews might well have to resort to cannibalism when shipwrecked and awaiting rescue, but there was a general policy of "don't ask, don't tell." One of the reasons the MIGNONETTE case made law is that the survivors spoke openly about what they had done. Most people spoke euphemistically of "the custom of the sea", which everybody understood to mean eating others, those who had died of natural causes and those "hurried along" in the process, but nobody spelled out.

A Google search on "cannibalism" and "law" and another on "THE MIGNONETTE" returned all of this information in a few minutes.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Mark Kalzer]

lol...This hypothetical situation DID involve drawing straws!

 

[Charles J P]

Are you talking about like triage? A process for determining if an injured person will get medical treatment, based their likelihood of survival if they recieve treatment. I.e. if you have a heart attack patient and someone who has been impaled by the 6" diameter pole and you only have one surgeon, you treat the heart attack person, because the other guy is GOING to die any way.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

lol...This hypothetical situation DID involve drawing straws!

That's because it isn't a hypothetical - it is simply a stripped down version of a real event that happened any number of times during the age of sail, and straws really were drawn to determine who would be killed and eaten.

One of the more famous cases involved the whaler Essex, the only known whaleship ever sunk by being rammed by its prey and the inspriration for Melville's Moby Dick.

This Salon review discussed both the Essex and the Mingnonette and how (and why) those famous straws were often rigged.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Are you talking about like triage?

Triage, from the French for 'three', is a lot more complicated than you describe. Obviously you don't expend medical resources on someone who is definitely going to die anyway, that isn't even a decision to be made.

The triage system, developed in greatly overtaxed WWI army medical services, entailed dividing the wounded into three groups: Those beyond help, those who could wait, those who needed immediate attention. But some of those who ended up in the "beyond help" group were only "beyond help" in the context of the aid station or field hospital. These were the cases that would have survived if they could reach a real hospital, cut which would be unable to because of limited transport and bad roads, and those who could have been saved but only at the cost of letting others die. There were a great many "beyond help" cases who were allowed to die because operating on them would have required two or more surgeons for several hours, or rare drugs. The same two surgeons, hours of operating table time and drugs might save six or eight other men with less serious but still life-threatening wounds. Those are the hard choices triage doctors face to this day in some combat and disaster situations.

In any event, I don't think the word "triage" applies to the lifeboat situation at all.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Eric_L]

rationalization - and it is from psychology, not law.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

"Driven by hunger to become cannibals this was a case which became a key precedent on the issue of necessity. Can an individual or individuals kill to ensure survival? Dudley and Stephens, two survivors of a wrecked yacht, killed a dying companion in order to preserve their own lives. In law, they were guilty of murder - but was there any justification for such a ghastly act? The Mignonette was a yawl-rigged yacht which sailed from Tollesbury in Essex. Despite being found guilty and receiving the mandatory sentence of death, the Queen commuted the penalty to six months' imprisonment without hard labour.

Law students have to study the Mignonette case when covering issues and defences of criminal responsibility."

Regards,

Joe

 

[Bryan X]

stranded at sea with a group of people, no food, and the only way to survive is to sacrifice someone so that the rest can survive. The person we sacrifice is weak and near death already.

I think that was the original premise for Gilligan's Island but they couldn't get it past the censors. Maybe it's the Gilliganus Eatus Gingerus defense.

 

[Mark Fitzsimmons]

utilitarianism? greatest good for greatest number?

 

[Brian W.]

Maybe it's the Gilliganus Eatus Gingerus defense

I could make a really nasty joke about that... but I shan't.

And I'd like to say that, as a person of small stature myself, it's the largest and most muscular person who should be killed and eaten, since you'd get more food out of him.

 

[Ted Lee]

largest and most muscular

i always thought you wanted the one with the most fat -- since fat equals energy?

in any case, i've always said i'd eat the liver first. doesn't that have the most ... ummm ... "healthy" stuff?

i'd have no problem with this philosophy or direction. heck, if i knew i was gonna die - i wouldn't mind at all if someone ate me if it prolonged their chances.