Dudley and Morality

While the famous takeaway of the case is that cannibalism will not be tolerated, perhaps it should be instead that the social value of a man does not determine the value of his life.

I think this is a really compelling point. In the reading for tomorrow, we learn about O’Brien’s fate aboard the Francis Spaight, despite his contention that drawing lots should not be limited to the boy apprentices. We see how Captain Harrison attempted to enforce the system of drawing lots on the Peggy, following a suspicious result in the first instance of lot drawing on the ship. Objections did not seem to arise from the system of drawing lots (which seemed to be accepted as a fair and common practice), but rather the objections point to the idea that the more suspicious the results, the more cause there was for concern. This completely supports your determination that there was a sense of the morality at stake not only on land, where the “condemnation of the custom of the sea” is sought through the trial of the case, but at sea as well. With ideas like natural selection and survival of the fittest on the one side, this kind of concern for social parity in matters of life and death reinforces the value of human dignity on the other.

Please correct me if I’m misunderstanding you, Mike, but I think all of this is in response to your point that practical results do arise out of moral stigma. Perhaps this case is the legal regulation that ensures it to be so.

-- CarolineElkin - 15 Apr 2009