Anna Jensen

Period 2/3
11/3/14
Shipwrecked Cannibalism
(Kant Essay)
In 1884 an English yacht, the Mignonette, got caught in a strong wind and was
shipwrecked on its way to Sydney, Australia. There were only 4 survivors: Captain Tom
Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks, and the cabin boy Richard Parker. Stranded
with only 2 cans of turnips for food and no clean water source the crew of the Mignonette
had to find another way to survive. Dudley suggested drawing sticks and eating the loser,
but Brooks was quick to shoot his idea down. Parker later fell very ill due to drinking
seawater, Dudley posed the same idea only this time they would just kill the already sick
cabin boy, although very opposed to this idea Brooks too when along with the plan for
food (Brooks was not charged when they went home). The crew was rescued and
returned home, but upon returning Dudley and Stephens were put on trail for their
actionss.This leaves us with one question: Did Dudley and Stephens do the right thing?
Some people, such as Jeremy Bentham, might say that they did the right thing because 3
out of 4 survivors are better than none and it maximizes happiness. Immanuel Kant and
his fellow Kantians however would disagree, saying that Dudley and Stephens were
wrong for reasons such as, 1) Humans are rational beings worthy of respect, 2) People
should be treated as an ends in themselves and, 3) Actions and their intentions determine
right and wrong.
According to Kant every person is worthy of respect, not because we own
ourselves but because we are rational beings, capable of reason; we are also autonomous
beings, capable of acting and choosing freely (Sandel 107). If we as humans are

worthy of respect, shouldnt have Parker had some say in his death? He most likely did
not want to be killed with a penknife and then eaten. Kant also says that we have a duty
to respect our fellow human beings (Sandel 123). If Kant is correct in points he makes
then Dudley shouldve respected Parker and the fact that maybe he didnt want to die. If
Dudley was acting with reason he wouldve know to treat Parker with respect. But what
if he was acting with reason? How would someone know? Might be asked as an
opposition. Well that would bring us to a second argument made by Kant: People need to
be treated as ends in themselves.
Michael Sandel quotes Kant in Justice: I say that man, and in general every
rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this
or that will (122). What Kant means is to treat people with respect and treat them not as
a way to obtain something for your own good but as a rational being, as people, as an
end to only themselves. As quoted in Justice Act in such a way Kant says that
you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other,
never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end (Sandel 122). So how do
we know that Dudley was not acting with reason? Well if people are worthy of respect
and should be treated as an ends to themselves, we know that Dudley did not act with
reason because he wouldve reasoned that Parker was a rational being worthy of respect,
and that he shouldve been treated as and ends to his own means not to the ends of
Dudley and Stephens survival.
Not only were Dudley and Stephens not acting with reason nor were they treating
Parker as an ends in himself, they did not take into account that intentions and motive
determine if an action is right or wrong. Kant says A good will is not a good because of

what it effects or accomplishes it is not enough that it should conform to the moral law
it must also be done for the sake of the moral law (Sandel 111). Meaning that although
an action may be good or moral it only is if the motive or intention for carrying out that
action must be for a moral reason. Kant gives an example he calls The Calculating
Shopkeeper (Sandel 112). The shopkeeper plans to overcharge a small child for a loaf of
bread, but decides not to because it will ruin his reputation as a shopkeeper (Sandel 112).
What the shopkeeper did was immoral because he does the right thing for the wrong
reason (Sandel 112). Killing Parker was not necessarily the right thing to do, but for all
we know Parker couldve been in pain, he couldve wanted to die. Parker was not the one
keeping the journal, and was most likely in a coma, so we will never know he truly felt
about this. Even if Parker was in pain Dudley and Stephens still wouldnt of been doing
the right thing, because they killed him only for the fact that they needed food, they also
did not know how Parker felt about this.
Dudley and Stephens are wrong for three reasons. They did not treat Parker with
respect; he is a human being and therefore is an autonomous being capable of reason and
worthy of respect. Dudley and Stephens did not treat parker as an ends in himself, they
used him for their own personal benefit, in this case food. They also did not take into
account that intention do matter, they did not ask Parker if he was in pain so therefore
they had no good reason for killing him.