Is Cannibalism Ever Okay?
By: Ben Kageyama
Tags: History, Cannibalism, Philosophy, Law, Morality

Is Cannibalism Ever Okay?

Photo by Andrew Bowyer on Unsplash

It was the summer of 1884 when a violent change in weather forced four English sailors to abandon ship a thousand miles from land. This misfortune left the sailors on a small lifeboat with nothing but two tins of turnips to eat. In the middle of the South Atlantic, things were looking bleak for Tom Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks, and Richard Parker.

The crew’s worsening circumstances

Dudley, the captain, managed to make an improvised sea anchor that kept the lifeboat stable. On the first night, the men fought off sharks with oars from the boat. And after the three days, the crew ran out of turnips.

Stephen, the first mate, was lucky enough to spot and capture an approaching sea turtle. The crew nourished themselves by drinking the turtle’s blood and eating its meat. When that ran out, they even consumed some of the animal’s smaller bones. At this point, the crew had been stranded for ten days.

They ate nothing for the next eight days of the ordeal. When they were thirsty, crew members drank their urine. They did this because most sailors knew about the dangers of drinking seawater. But the young and desperate cabin boy, Richard Parker, refused to believe and fell ill for doing so.

Cannibalism or death

Photo of the crew’s lifeboat from Simpson, A. W. B. (1984) Cannibalism and the Common Law: The Story of the Tragic Last Voyage of the Mignonette and the Strange Legal Proceedings to Which It Gave Rise, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

On the 19th day of the ordeal, Dudley proposed that the crew members draw lots to determine who would be cannibalized by the others. A heated argument among the men ensued, so nothing came of it.

By the 20th day, Richard Parker was lying on the boat, more dead than he was alive. The crew thought that he was in a coma. It was then that Dudley and Stephens decided that Parker had to be killed.

Dudley offered a prayer and told the dying boy that his time was up. Using his penknife, the captain stabbed the boy in the jugular vein, and Parker passed away.

Despite his protest against killing Parker, Brooks joined the two killers in feasting over the boy. The survivors ate his body and drank his blood for the next four days and were miraculously rescued by a passing ship soon after.

Crime and punishment

When they arrived in England, authorities immediately placed Dudley and Stephens on trial for the murder of Richard Parker. While the duo admitted to killing the boy, they posited the defence of necessity from the circumstances. But the court did not find their argument as valid from a legal standpoint.

But would you find their actions permissible purely from a moral perspective? Was it justified to kill one to save three? Public opinion at the time was reportedly for the “cannibals.”

Remarkably, even Parker’s brother forgave Dudley and Stephens in open court.

Regardless, the court sentenced Parker’s assailants to death. Fortunately for them, their government considered their unique situation and commuted their sentences to six months. Brooks was acquitted because he disapproved of Parker’s killing.

Epilogue

Richard Parker’s grave by Hethurs at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

When Dudley and Stephens got out, they discovered that Brooks was already out at sea for another voyage. Stephens settled in a quiet town doing odd jobs to sustain himself. Terrorized by the events from the lifeboat, he eventually went mad.

Dudley, on the other hand, moved to Australia, managing to keep his past a secret. According to one report, he dealt with the trauma of the incident with frequent use of opium.

As for Richard Parker, his family planted a tombstone for his memory with these passages engraved: