Garret Hardin Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor

In the article “Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor”, the author Garrett Hardin raised the question that whether the rich countries should help people suffer from poverty. He claimed that the supporting strategies for the developing countries, including the World Food Bank could result in more severe recourse inadequate issue and other disasters. In addition, a large number of immigrants flood in the US could ruin the natural environment and social balance. In that case, the author argued that regardless of the current situation, privileged nations should not provide aid to people trapped within difficulties of the underdeveloped nations. Even though, his

Garrett Hardin published in Psychology Today in September 1974. This passage is an excerpt from his popular paper “The Tragedy of the Commons” as a warning that overpopulation was dangerous due to how limited Earth’s resources are. This theory is reflected in Hardin’s thesis that the rich should do nothing to help the people of poor nations and turn away those trying to come in. Hardin used the imagery of a lifeboat almost filled in a sea full of drowning people to pose and answer a single question, “what should the lifeboat passengers do?” (290). Hardin's answer was to defend the boat against all trying to board. If anyone felt guilty about this course of action they should feel free to swap places with a drowning man and give them their

Garrett Hardin argues for a very harsh thesis: we simply should not provide aid to people in poor countries. His argument is consequentialist: he claims that the net result of doing so would be negative -- would in fact be courting large-scale disaster. One of the things that we will notice about Hardin's essay, however, is that whether he is right or wrong, he paints with a very broad brush. This makes it a good essay for the honing of your philosophical skills; you should notice that there are many places where the reasoning procees with less than total care.

In the essay Lifeboat Ethics by Garrett Hardin and the essay A Challenge to the Eco-Doomsters by Walter Benjamin, there are many things I agree and disagree with. Both essays make very good points with facts to back them up. But I can’t help but side with Hardin on his essay Lifeboat Ethics. In this essay I am going to compare and contrast some of the similarities and differences between Hardin and Benjamin’s essays about the aid the United States provides to poor nations all over the world by reducing pollution, controlling population growth, and the dependency of economical imports and exports.

This increases the responsibility of the state for looking after its citizens as the poorer population of the country grows in numbers. Hardin demonstrates this in ‘Living on a Lifeboat’ by examining the rate of reproduction of the poor in comparison to the wealthy. According to Hardin, the population of the poorer classes doubles every thirty-five years, whilst the wealthier classes experience the same growth over a period of eighty-seven years. (Hardin, 1974) In a lifeboat situation, this reproduction rate would mean the poor would be heavily reliant on the income and supplies of the wealthy. Due to this Hardin states that the wealthy must assume that the poor will be self-interested and sharing our resources with them will only be harmful to our own survival. (Hardin, 1974) Why should the wealthy share if they get nothing from the poor in return? They deposit their supplies into a shared collective on the boat and the poor on-board take it without giving anything back. Hardin refers to this as the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and if taken into a real-life situation we are presented with the development of social benefits for the poor - a system in which the rich pay taxes in order for the poor to be financially supported through state benefits, social housing etc. (Hardin,

At first Hardin’s ethics seem rude and selfish, but as you continue reading he makes it clear this may be the only way to save our world and have it become a better place. For instance, "on the average poor countries undergo a 2.5 percent increase in population each year; rich countries, about 0.8 percent. If the poor countries received no food from the out side, the rate of their population growth […]" (Hardin 4). Hardin continues his piece explaining why rich countries should not help poorer countries that are in need. He believes a poor country that needs support needs to learn the hard way, even if that means losing resources or people. His words like "rich countries", "no food" shows the use of a metaphor that Hardin is able to paint a visual illustration of his argument to his audience. This helps influence and persuade his readers because they are able to grasp the whole concept of Hardin’s argument. Hardin also spoke in his essay using the repetition of the words "we" and "us" is a language factor that persuades the audience to accept Hardin’s ideas because it implicates that he and his audience is of equal status. Here, the ethics he reveals in his essay have good reasoning. Helping someone in need has always been a moral in someone’s life. But now, Hardin proposes a new ethic, "lifeboat ethics". Singer, on the other hand, often refers to the fact that nearly one-third of Americans spend their income on luxuries that they “desire” instead of donating the

As Andrew Kuper, a Fellow of Trinity College of Cambridge and researcher of philosophy, politics, and the modern world, once said "Since the costs to ourselves may be significant, how much ought we to sacrifice?" (Kuper, 1). A direct correspondence of such can be seen in the work of Garrett Hardin, specifically "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor," versus Peter Singer, author of "The Singer Solution To World Poverty," and Alan Durning, author of "Asking How Much Is Enough." Garret Hardin, a former professor and ecologist, argues that the wealthier nations of the world need to not allow themselves to get caught up in helping the

In Garrett Hardin’s essay, Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor, Hardin describes the wealthy population of the world as being in a single lifeboat that is almost filled until buckling while the poor population of the world treads water below. Hardin’s essay gets his readers to feel the natural instinct to survive. The lifeboat metaphor that Hardin uses relieves the wealthy population of their moral obligations to the less fortunate, but in addition, puts all of the blame and cause of the depletion of earth’s resources on the poor. As much as his argument may make sense,

In the article “ Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”, Garrett Hardin (1974) argues that wealthy people should not be responsible for the poor and that the consequences of feeding the poor are detrimental to the environment and to the society as a whole. Hardin was a well known philosopher and ecologist. He earned his bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and also earned his doctorate degree in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941 (Garrett Hardin, n.d.). The main issue that he tackled was human overpopulation and one of the books that he wrote that analyzed this issue was called ‘How Global Population Growth Threatens Widespread Social Disorder’(1992). Because the author has a sufficient

Within “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” Peter Singer delves into the topic of famine; specifically, the moral obligations individuals in affluent countries have to those who are suffering. In his example, Singer focuses on the population of East Bengal, and their struggle with famine and extreme poverty. Singer proposes that with enough aid from both individuals and various governments extreme poverty can be eradicated. Therefore, the question he presents is why poor people are dying while affluent people are spending excess money on luxuries? Singer argues that affluent people, living in affluent countries, are not helping developing countries by failing to give enough to alleviate extreme poverty.

Garrett Hardin’s excerpt from “Lifeboat Ethics” first appeared in Psychology Today in September 1974. In this essay, there is a metaphor that rich and poor are very different. I strongly disagree with Hardin’s metaphor even though he is truthful about his beliefs. The metaphor is only being seen in one point of view, when there are multiple ways of looking at it.

Lifeboat Ethics is a metaphor for depicting the process of how resources and wealth are distributed as described by ecologist Garrett Hardin. Hardin published “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor,” rationalizing that wealthy nations should not be held accountable for assisting the needs of the poor. Hardin defends his utilitarianism “good for all” approach regarding the distribution of resources through rationalization with the use of statistical values and “commons” to depict his point. However, his metaphor of a limited, “safety” lifeboat is in fault for assuming that the problem for limited resources is primarily caused by the liberal, humanitarian efforts of richer countries helping poorer ones.

Nowadays, the process of globalization strengthens the connections between numerous countries across the world, and enables people living in developed countries to help those who are experiencing famine, deaths and diseases in poor countries. However, the moral necessity of doing so has been controversial in human’s society for years. One philosopher named Peter Singer gives his opinion in the article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, and presents a powerful argument supporting his claim. In this essay, I will explain his conclusion and main argument, propose one objection to his argument, and evaluate the validity of my objection by considering possible response that Peter Singer would make to my objection.

Garrett Hardin was a controversial ecologist who believed that overpopulation was going to bring a downfall to a world of limited resources. Each nation was compared to a lifeboat with the rich being inside the boat and the poor in the water, drowning (Hardin, 561). He wrote the “Lifeboat Ethics” in 1974 when Ethiopia was having a starvation problem. Hardin’s opinion about the situation was that sending aid to Ethiopia was only making the problem worse and by feeding the people would aid overpopulation; the root to the problem. Hardin’s thesis developed from the notion that the rich should do nothing to help the poor. He believed that one

     Imagine living in a community where every minute of everyday you were hungry, underclothed, and at risk for death because you are poor. Now imagine waking up and your biggest problem was which sweater to wear with which jeans. Both are scenarios that occur on a daily basis in our countries, some more extreme than others are. With that in mind a question of whether or not rich nations have an obligation to help those nations if need arises. Professor of philosophy Peter Singer and biologist Garrett Hardin both have very different opinions on this matter and the following paper will focus on their arguments.