Books like The Case of the Speluncean Explorers

'The Case of the Speluncean Explorers' is a hypothetical legal case described in a 1949 Harvard Law Review article by Lon L. Fuller. It largely takes the form of five separate judicial opinions attributed to judges sitting on the fictitious Supreme Court of Newgarth in the year 4300.The hypothetical involves five cave explorers who are caved in following a landslide. They learn via intermittent radio contact that they are likely to starve to death by the time they can be rescued. The cavers subsequently decide to kill and eat one of their number in order to survive. After the four survivors are rescued, they are indicted for the murder of the fifth member. The prescribed penalty is capital punishment. Fuller's article proceeds to examine the case from the perspectives of five different legal principles, with widely varying conclusions as to whether or not the spelunkers should be found guilty and thereby face the death penalty under the law of Newgarth.Fuller's account has been described as "a classic in jurisprudence" and "a microcosm of [the 20th] century's debates" in legal philosophy, as it allowed a contrast to be drawn between different judicial approaches to resolving controversies of law, including natural law and legal positivism