Politicians, public figures and private individuals have debated every aspect of this case in public and private spheres since the day the plight of the speluncean explorers was known.
The Case of the Speluncean Explorers is a hypothetical legal case set in the Supreme Court of Newgarth. There were five members of the Speluncean Society, an organisation for amateurs interested in cave exploration.
The Speluncean Explorers case presents a variety of legal theories through the diverse perspectives of judges and scholars, such as natural law theory, consequentialist theory, positive law theory, and critical race theory, often presenting conflicting viewpoints.
Lon L. Fuller published his "The Case of the Speluncean Explorers" in 1949 (Harvard Law Review, vol. 62, no. 4), an invented legal case with opinions by "supreme court judges" meant to reflect differing legal philosophies.
Lon Fuller’s “Case of the Speluncean Explorers,” a hypothetical murder case involving a group of cannibalistic cave explorers, is one of the most well-known thought experiments in the field of law.…
The Case of the Speluncean Explorers is a hypothetical legal case crafted by Lon L. Fuller to explore the complexities of judicial interpretation. It presents a moral dilemma where four explorers are tried for murder after killing and eating a companion to survive while trapped in a cave.
Those were the questions at hand in the mock appellate case presented at the Harvard Law Review’s annual spring forum on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Professor Lon Fuller’s famous article, “The Case of the Speluncean Explorers.”
The Daily Record (Maryland): The Speluncean Explorers case: How would you decide?