Garrett Hardin Living On A Lifeboat Analysis

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

It should be obvious that this is a dubious metaphor. To begin with (and this will come up again) not all countries are either rich or poor. Furthermore, it is not as clear as Hardin assumes that we lack the resources to save everyone. And the argument from the safety factor may seem dubious. Couldn't we help some people -- even if we select them in a fairly arbitrary way?

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.

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

In this case, England seems to be at an economic advantage in relation to poverty compared to third world countries. This quote can be related to the economic base portion of Marxist theory where welfare is promoted and a high percentage of the population uses it. Much like America, England encourages a capitalistic economic base. They believe the people under welfare housing will soon prosper and become a key component in the working class in the future. By providing them with such resources such as shelter, food, and medical care just to name a few, they shall soon overcome this tough phase in their life and break free from the cycle of poverty. However this is not the case. Many people stay in these welfare housing units for generations and are not doing their part to help leave their state of poverty, rather their succumbing to the presumption that things are not going to get better for them and they should just enjoy the free ride. The people living in poverty in England are given the necessities of life such as food, shelter, and even entertainment. When you think of poverty however, these do not come to mind. Usually you would think of the economic state of the

Regardless of the ever-so-sensitive metaphor of a lifeboat, Hardin uses an appeal to force, or ad baculum, to make his point. He basically states, "If everyone, rich and poor nations alike, is let on the lifeboat, then everyone will die. We don't want everyone to die, so everyone shouldn't come onto the lifeboat, as in the wealthy should stay where they are."

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,

“Nature is rich; but everywhere man, the heir of nature, is poor.” Lloyd begins his work by complaining about how the rich remain rich and the poor remain poor; however, as the essay progresses, one can see the accuracy of his views. He references the creation of Adam and Eve, stating that, “Never since time began have all the sons and daughters of men been all warm, and filled, and all shod and roofed.” It’s been true throughout history that because of monopolies that a very small percentage of men control a majority of land and resources. Lloyd states that individuals holding a majority of resources and land believe that that there is a scarcity; that there is not enough. And in order to survive, in order to be happy, in order to be prosperous, they must contain and constrain. Men must hold on to any and everything they can get their hands on. The minority has an opposing viewpoint. It feels that there is an abundance of resources, but because of unequal distribution, there is never enough to go around: “There is too much iron, too much lumber, too much flour―for this or that syndicate. The majority have never been able to buy enough of anything; but this minority have too much of everything to sell.” Lloyd concludes by expressing that we have become a “mutual deglutition.” He states that we have advanced too quickly and implicates that we are beginning to reverse

A view on the subject matter I find myself agreeing with is that “redistribution of a static supply of resources accomplishes nothing and makes no one richer.” (M. Pennington, 2013.) The reasoning behind my stance on this subject is that the more we tax the wealthy to redistribute to the poorer, we fall more and more into a socialistic society. While

The author begins by comparing the two metaphors of the earth that describe the allocation of resources between the poor and the rich people. In the spaceship metaphor, the earth is described as being enclosed and all of the people share resources equally with each other. On the other hand, in the lifeboat metaphor a lifeboat represents different countries, the wealthy people survive on the lifeboat, whilst the poor are in the ocean struggling to survive. Hardin goes on to say that the spaceship ethic is invalid since the earth has limited resources. Also the fact that it is very difficult to share resources equally amongst each other since poor people are more populated than rich people causing the number of limited resources to decline. In addition, he talks about immigration and how unchecked immigration can affect the environment because of overpopulation.

Hardin’s lifeboat analogy proposes an interesting situation. If a lifeboat with 50 people on board and a capacity of 60 floated past 100 other people in the water, who would we take, if anyone? If we tried to take everyone, the boat would capsize and everyone would either become stranded or die. It would lead to “complete justice, complete catastrophe” (Hardin 1). If we took no one, we would constantly have to stave off desperate people climbing on board and those who claim entitlement. If we decide to push our lifeboat to its limits, and add 10 more people, how would we choose who to take? What I gather from this is that there’s no truly correct solution. If we take everyone, we all die. If we take no one, we get shamed and blamed for leaving others behind. If we take a select few, we get called out as biased by those who weren’t selected.

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.

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.