Ship Wreck Murder

I heard a story recently that I would like to give me input on. It was about these three men who were ship wrecked and they were quickly running out of food, so they decoded to play a game. They all agreed to the terms and those terms were that the loser would let the other two men eat him so that they could survive. They were going to draw sticks (because straw are a pretty scares thing on a deserted island) and who ever got the short one got eaten. The problem arose when the man who lost decided that he didn’t really wanted to be eaten, so the two men killed him and ate him against his will. The man who was killed sustained the other two men long enough to be rescued, but unfortunately for the ones rescued they were convicted of first degree murder. Some people didn't agree with the conviction, and I would like to make my argument in favor of the conviction.

I think that the situation really sucks for the two guys, but I have to say that I agree with the conviction. Sure the killing of the man kept the other two alive long enough for help to arrive, and it may have been the only way for then to survive, and he may have agreed initially to the conditions to the game, but that still does not change the definition of murder: “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another” (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/murder?q=murder), which is exactly what happened. If we begin to bend laws depending on the circumstances, the question has to be asked “where does it end?” If they were not convicted it would open the flood gates for all sorts of loop holes, for example, let us say that you do not like someone so much so that you want to kill them. You and a buddy could just recreate what happened, kill the person you do not like, and then arrange for someone to ‘find” you. I know that that is a far fetched example, but it was the best that I could think of. Some people might argue that none of the men would have survived if the one man had not given his life (even if it was involuntary), so rather than one person all three people dying only one had to die. To that I would say you are absolutely right. However, no set of laws can account for every single situation and if we have the laws, even if they are flawed, we need to abide by them. Like I said before, you need to ask yourself, where will the exceptions end and how dishonest people take will advantage of it. Another important question that needs to be asked is was there even consent in the first place? For all we know the two surviving men could have killed the man, and then just completely made up the consent and just have strait up murdered him. As much as I hate to say it, I think that I would have made up a story like that is a friend and I killed someone on an island. (535 words)