Problem
In the final paragraph of The Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens the Court writes:
"It must not be supposed that in refusing to admit the temptation to be an excuse for a crime it is forgotten how terrible the temptation was; how awful the suffering; how hard in such trials to keep the judgment straight and the conduct pure. We are often compelled to set up standards we cannot reach ourselves, and to lay down rules which we could not ourselves satisfy. But a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse, though he might himself have yielded to it, nor allow compassion for the criminal to change or weaken in any manner the legal definition of the crime. It is therefore our duty to declare that the prisoners' act, in this case, was wilful murder, that the facts as stated in the verdict are no legal justification of the homicide; and to say that in our unanimous opinion the prisoners are upon this special verdict guilty of murder."
What do you think the court is saying here when it says that we are 'compelled to set up standards we cannot reach ourselves'? Does this make sense to you? Why or why not? Does the view expressed in this paragraph change how you think about the lifeboat case?