Garrett Hardin Lifeboat Ethics Analysis

In his essay “Lifeboat Ethics”, Garrett Hardin evaluates weather the rich nations of the world should help the poor nations, and predicts what the effects of helping may have on future generations. Hardin applies lifeboat ethics as a way of evaluating the worlds resource distribution. In the metaphor, rich countries have seats on the boat (resources) and poor countries are in the water (without resources). Hardin suggests that when rich countries help the poor they worsen situation by unsustainably stretching out finite resources to the point of collapse.

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.

In Garrett Hardin’s essay “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor,” Hardin asks readers if every person on earth has an equal share of resources and then argues why he takes the position against helping the poor. Hardin uses the metaphor of a lifeboat that is almost filled to capacity, floating in an ocean where the “poor of the world” are overboard. This metaphor appeals greatly to one of humanities greatest instincts, survival. The main focus of Hardin’s essay and metaphor is to strip all morals, take the fault from the rich nations and place the responsibilities and blame on the poor. There are a few rebels who seem to think that the blame and responsibilities are incorrectly placed. One of these rebels is Alan Durning who presents his argument in his essay “Asking How Much is Enough.” Durning argues that overpopulation does not threaten the world’s resources. He believes the real culprit is overconsumption by the rich. Joseph K. Skinner is another rebel who argues against Hardin in his essay “Big Mac and the Tropical Forests.” Skinner argues that wealthy nations, including the United States, are responsible for the world’s resource problem because they use poor nations as main producers of goods they expend. The arguments made in the essays’ by Durning and Skinner make readers alert of Hardin’s rhetorical strategies and how he uses his

The writer behind “Singers Solution to World Poverty” advocates that U.S. citizens give away the majority of their dispensable income in order to end global suffering. Peter Singer makes numerous assumptions within his proposal about world poverty, and they are founded on the principle that Americans spend too much money on items and services that they do not need.

While reading Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor by Garrett Hardin, I found myself agreeing with what he had to say throughout most of his essay, for this reason I decided to write about it for my essay. About halfway through I thought that he was very good at presenting his case against helping the poor. Saying that outright sounds cruel and selfish but in the end, it isn't.

Throughout history, global and national problems have plagued the world and its inhabitants. Some people believe that it’s best to focus on one’s own well-being and ignore the well-being of those they see as inferior. Others possess a sense of remorse and compassion for the less fortunate, and express their need to help them. Garrett Hardin, the author of “Lifeboat Ethics,” and Jonathan Swift, the author of “A Modest Proposal,” have two different perspectives on how one should act toward national and global issues; which they discuss in their essays. Both employ the modes of persuasion when explaining their solutions, however, Swift’s argument is presented in a more effective manner.

In the excerpt from “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”, Garrett Hardin believes that every rich country cannot help the poor. The rich country is in a lifeboat and the poor country is in the water around the boat, begging to get into the life boat. The lifeboat and the economy have a limit; therefore, they cannot take on too much. What constitutes who gets onto the metaphorical lifeboat? Does the lifeboat rescue everyone and cause “complete catastrophe” or does the lifeboat allow a specific number of people based on selective criteria? These are the questions posed by the author in this moral dilemma.

Garrett Hardin wrote an essay titled “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”. In this essay he spoke of the Earth being similar to a lifeboat in which it has limited capacity and resources. This is a fair assumption, as the Earth does have limited resources and carrying capacity. He mentions that we are “adrift in a moral sea” saying that in today’s world it is morally abhorrent to not help a person in need but that we should do what we have to in order to survive ourselves. Hardin mentions a “tragedy of the commons” he states that if a pasture were to become a commons it would only take one person to not show restraint to ruin the system and cause mass suffering. He uses the world’s air and water as an example claiming that they

Population and resource control is, and will be for quite some time, a very controversial subject. In Garrett Hardin’s paper “Lifeboat Ethics”, he makes the case against helping the underprivileged with a ‘World Foodbank’. He uses some statistics that are strung together with rhetoric masquerading as logic. In doing so, his argument falls short. To make the reader understand the extent of the current population crisis, he depends on the audience to experience guilt.

Garrett Hardin, human ecologist and writer, in the informative analytical essay, “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor” (published 1974), argues that overpopulation is affecting our dwindling resources on Earth and it has to be stopped. Hardin supports his argument by giving statistics about the rise in population in the past decades and by explaining how this impacts the use of our resources; his generous use of parentheticals helps him convey his message eloquently, and his use of anaphora when he says, “Complete justice, complete catastrophe.”( Hardin, 383) keeps the reader absorbed; and his use of dilemmas throughout the whole article keeps the reader curious and wanting to continue reading on. Hardin’s purpose is to persuade

What would you do if you had to constantly think about how you were going to eat or take a shower or find clean water to drink? This is the daily struggle those people in underdeveloped countries face. So, what can we do about this? Peter Singer offered an argument for the moral obligations we have to others. He argued that there is nothing that is preventing us from performing our duty to individuals that are dying from malnutrition and disease. According to Singer, each of us can all afford to save a starving child by budgeting a little. Simply spending the appropriate amount of money it takes to meet our basic needs and donating the rest can make a tremendous impact on the life of each starving child in another country. Singer suggests that we can opt for a less expensive lifestyle that is unnecessary and then the rest of the money can be donated. Many people try to argue that they cannot afford to donate, but in reality, we all have more than we actually need and we are all capable of donating a portion of our earnings. Any excuse or objection someone tries to come up with can be proven to be untrue by applying Singer’s

Ecologist Garrett Hardin’s excerpt from his original essay, “Lifeboat Ethics: The case against helping the poor” portrays what is the harsh reality in the generation’s economically divided world in 1974. In this figurative excerpt, which first appeared in Psychology Today, Hardin expresses his dislike for the poor people and immigrants of this world by linking the problem to a lifeboat. He goes as far as to imply that their death would be more ethical than allowing them to live and reproduce. While there is some sad truth to what Hardin proclaims, I am not in agreement with his argument. There are limited resources to aid the underprivileged; nevertheless most wealthy nations are perfectly capable of helping any struggling people in need-

The global poor have been an issue that the world has faced for generations and with the gap between the rich and poor always expanding, we have to ask ourselves the question of “what should we do about it?” and “should we even do something about it?”. In this essay, I will be arguing the moral implications of consequentialism and why Onora O’Neill’s non-consequential view on the subject is more plausible than Peter Singer’s consequential view. I will explain what differentiates Singer and O’Neill’s views and where both their views come together.

- No! You Cannot Come in Garrett Hardin writes about saving the poor in his essay"Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against the Poor" found in The Blair Reader. Hardin writes about how the rich countries are in the lifeboat and the poor countries are swimming in the ocean. He also writes about how the United States helps other countries. Hardin feels that if the government keeps helping other countries and letting people in then America will also drown. "We must convince them if we wish to save at least part of the world form environmental ruin"(page 765). Why should I help the poor countries? Why should I let the immigrants in? I see no reason for helping someone that

During The Lifeboat written by Rosetta Lee, a ship has crashed in a rough part of the sea, also all but one of the lifeboats have been destroyed. A lifeboat can hold up to six people at a time. Originally, there are ten people who are rushing and wanting to board the boat, but there are only six seats. In the end, four people are going to have to go down with the ship while the other six are sailing away to safety. The list of ten people are: woman who thinks she is six months pregnant, lifeguard, two young newlyweds, senior citizen, elementary school teacher, thirteen year old twins, veteran nurse, and captain of the ship (289-290).