![Sample our Sports and Leisure journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5949/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Sports-Leisure.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
On May 15th, 2006, 34 year-old mountaineer David Sharp died in a small cave a few hundred meters below the peak of Mount Everest in the aptly named ‘death zone’. As he lay dying, Sharp was passed by forty-plus climbers on their way to the summit, none of whom made an effort to rescue him. The climbers’ failure to rescue Sharp sparked intense debate in mountaineering circles and the mainstream media, but philosophers have not yet weighed in on the issues. This is surprising, since Sharp’s case raises interesting puzzles about the duty to rescue. Commonsense morality suggests that it was wrong for the climbers to put their summit bids ahead of saving a human life. But rescuing Sharp was extremely risky. If you and I are not required to assume significant risks to rescue others, why think the climbers had a moral duty to do this? My primary focus is on a new principle of rescue, which I dub the comparable risk principle, that has not been discussed in the duty-to-rescue literature. More generally, I explore the limits of the duty to rescue not just in Sharp’s case, but in relevantly similar high-risk environments common in action sports.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Eisuke Shigekawa, member of the 1996 Japanese Everest expedition team, on why his team did not try to rescue another group of climbers in distress.
2 I use the term ‘climbers’ to refer to participants of both climbing and mountaineering.
3 Heil (Citation2008) provides an excellent account of Sharp’s story and the controversy around his death.
4 By a duty to rescue, I mean a moral obligation or requirement to rescue, such that failure to act on the obligation is morally wrong.
5 I borrow this terminology from Kevin Krein (Citation2007).
6 The distinction between risks and costs may seem misguided, for what one risks is a potential cost. If I risk a finger when I rescue a victim, then surely that is a potential cost of undertaking the rescue. For present purposes, however, it will often be useful to distinguish the opportunities one forgoes (e.g. a chance to summit Everest) from the potential physical and psychological harms one risks (e.g. loss of life or limb) as a result of undertaking a rescue. I generally refer to the former as ‘costs’ and the latter as ‘risks’.
7 See, e.g., Igneski (Citation2008), Kamm (Citation2000), McGinn (Citation1999), Scheffler (Citation2003), Slote (Citation2007), Williams (Citation1973) and Wollard (2015).
8 I say ‘generally’ here, because we may have special obligations, including a very demanding duty to rescue, in virtue of special relationships we have with others – e.g. family and friends. I address this line of argument below.
9 In this case, there is only potential loss of life and limb, whereas Singer’s statement of the principle appears to refer to actual sacrifices we would have to make. But we never know the actual sacrifices a rescue effort requires until it is completed. When applying the principle, then, it seems the best we can do is estimate the likely risks and costs.
10 Note that this principle is not derivable from a basic consequentialist principle that requires us always to perform the action with the morally superior outcome, other things equal. If it were, then, since rescuing Sharp would require the efforts of many, and thus put many lives at risk, it would not imply a duty to try to rescue him.
11 While I am unaware of discussion of a principle along this line in the literature on the duty to rescue, a kind of comparable risk principle is assumed by various authors in arguing for the permissibility of performance enhancing drugs. See, e.g. Brown (Citation2007) and Savulescu, Foddy, and Clayton (Citation2004). The basic argument is that athletes cannot object to the use of PED’s if they pose no greater risks than the risks assumed in their chosen sport. For an objection to this line of argument, see Russell and Browne (Citation2018).
12 I thank John Russell for help with this way of expressing the point.
13 It will also impose similar burdens on those who engage in risky lines of work, or who assume risks for other ends less important, morally speaking, than saving a life.
14 See Woollard (Citation2015) for how frequency and severity can affect one’s duty to rescue.
15 Miller (Citation2019) makes a similar point in response to attempts to ground a duty to rescue in membership in a political community.
16 Perhaps appeal to the fellowship gives one extra reason to save the climber, or to serve as a tie-breaker if both can’t be saved. See, e.g. Miller (Citation2019).
17 See Rulli and Wendler (Citation2015).
18 See, e.g. Ronald Dworkin (Citation1986).
19 Special thanks to Doran Smolkin for his insightful comments on several drafts of this paper, and to Nick Riggle for suggesting the title to me. I am grateful, too, for the helpful comments I received from John Russell, Warren Bourgeois, and two anonymous referees from the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport. I also benefitted from discussion of the issues with Colin Ruloff, Aaron James, and the audience of the 2019 PHILOsurfer Convergence. Finally, I thank the Office of Research and Scholarship at Kwantlen Polytechnic University for a grant which helped facilitate the writing of this paper.