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 The ethics of climbing Everest

The triumph of mountaineer Mark Inglis, who last week became the first double amputee

to climb Everest, has been soured by the news he left a dying climber to his fate. Ethicist

Daniel Sokol asks whether he was right to do so.

One of Malcolm Bradbury's novels is entitled Eating People is Wrong. In normal circumstances,it is also wrong to abandon dying people.

Yet, as the saying goes, "circumstances alter cases" and it is not clear whether New ZealanderMark Inglis, a double amputee, and the 39 other climbers who passed him committed a moral

wrong by abandoning the expiring David Sharp on Everest.

Were they right to leave him behind? The answer depends on the circumstances. Clearly, there

are times when it would be plain foolish to attempt a rescue. A lifeguard cannot be expected to

dive into shark-infested waters to save a imprudent swimmer.

One factor in the decision-making is thus the probable risk to the rescuers. Would the attempted

rescue have posed a serious risk to the climbers? The answer appears to be no.

The main defence put by Mr Inglis is not that the rescuers would have put themselves at risk but

that Mr Sharp was "effectively dead". Frozen, he could only move his eyes. If this diagnosis iscorrect, it is extremely unlikely that he would have survived the descent. No amount of help

would have saved his life.

Hour of need

Yet it seems that the climbers viewed the decision as a choice between leaving him behind andattempting a rescue.

“ An act is morally justified if you can show it was the right thing to do, but excusable if the

circumstances were such that you cannot really be blamed ”

Daniel SokolThere was a third option: to stay with him until the end. If saving his life was impossible, then

surely the second best option was for some of the 40 climbers to comfort him in his last

moments. This would have been a compassionate solution.

At 8,500m and -38C, in considerable physical and emotional discomfort, among 40 climberswhose life ambition is to reach the top, and with maybe only enough oxygen for a direct climb to

the summit, it is perhaps excusable that no-one volunteered to stay behind.

These extreme meteorological, psychological and social conditions should be taken into account

when evaluating the climbers' decision. It is too easy to lay blame on the climbers by appealingto abstract moral principles and high-sounding virtues.

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Decisions are not made in a vacuum, but in specific circumstances, and few can be as adverse

and traumatic as those faced by the climbers.

Moral philosophers sometimes make a distinction between a justifiable act and an excusable one.

An act is morally justified if you can show that it was the right thing to do. An act is excusable if,

even though what you did was wrong, the circumstances were such that you cannot really beblamed.

So, for example, a liar can claim that he only lied because he was forced to lie by a threateningand powerful friend, or because he was talking in his sleep, or because he feared the truth would

cause his beloved wife to leave him. In some cases, it is difficult to distinguish the justifiablefrom the merely excusable.

Although few people know exactly what happened on Mount Everest that fateful day last week,it seems that the decision to abandon Mr Sharp was, if not justified, at least excusable. Only an

exceptional person would have willingly chosen to stay behind to comfort the dying man. Blame

is not an appropriate response to this tragedy.

Daniel K Sokol is a medical ethicist at the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, London.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5016536.stm

Published: 2006/05/25 12:52:38 GMT

© BBC 2011