The Case of the Speluncean Explorers

Fuller's hypothetical case involves a group of cave explorers who are trapped following a cave-in and face the risk of dying from starvation. The case examines how the rescued survivors, who kill and eat one person in order to survive, should be treated by the law.

"The Case of the Speluncean Explorers" is an article by legal philosopher Lon L. Fuller first published in the Harvard Law Review in 1949. Largely taking the form of a fictional judgment, it presents a legal philosophy puzzle to the reader and five possible solutions in the form of judicial opinions that are attributed to judges sitting on the fictional "Supreme Court of Newgarth" in the year 4300.[a]

The case involves five explorers who are caved in following a landslide. They learn via intermittent radio contact that, without food, they are likely to starve to death before they can be rescued. They decide that one of them should be killed and eaten, so that the others might survive. They determine who should be killed by throwing a pair of dice. After the four survivors are rescued, they are charged and found guilty of the murder of the fifth explorer. If their appeal to the Supreme Court of Newgarth fails, they face a mandatory death sentence. Although the wording of the statute is clear and unambiguous, there is intense public pressure to spare the men from the death penalty.

The article offers five possible court responses. Each differs in its reasoning and on whether the survivors should be found guilty of breaching the law. Two judges affirm the convictions, emphasising the importance of the separation of powers and literal approach to statutory interpretation. Two others overturn the convictions; one focuses on "common sense" and the popular will while the other uses arguments drawn from the natural law tradition, emphasizing the purposive approach when applying law. A fifth judge, who is unable to reach a conclusion, recuses himself. As the court's decision is a tie, the original convictions are upheld and the men are sentenced to death.

Fuller's account has been described as "a classic in jurisprudence"[2] and "a microcosm of [the 20th] century's debates" in legal philosophy.[3] It allows for contrasts to be drawn between different legal philosophies, with the main two being natural law and legal positivism. In the 50 years following the article's publication, a further 25 hypothetical judgments were written by various authors whose perspectives include natural law theory, consequentialism, plain meaning positivism or textualism, purposivism, historical contextualism, realism, pragmatism, critical legal studies, feminism, process theory and minimalism.[4]

  1. ^ Fuller 1949, p. 645.
  2. ^ D'Amato 1980, p. 467.
  3. ^ Eskridge 1993, p. 467.
  4. ^ Roederer 2003, p. 388.


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