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

Aldo Leopold is another American environmentalist who was dominant in the development of modern environmental ethics. Aldo was more for holistic ethics regarding land. According to him, “An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom action in the struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a differentiation of social from anti-social conduct.” He describes in his article that politics and economics are advanced symbioses in which free-for-all competition has been replaced by co-operative mechanism with an ethical content.” He thought that ethics direct individuals to cooperate with each other for the mutual benefit of all. Also he believes that community should be

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.

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,

This is the scenario of the Lifeboat Ethics in which Hardin relates this lifeboat to the space ship Earth. It goes that the lifeboat is the wealth nations and the people in the water are the poor or unfortunate. All ethic beliefs have flaws and strong points, as you will see in the following explanations. The 5 ethical theories have a one or two examples explaining how someone would go about making this decision from the view of: Divine Command Theory, Egoism, Utilitarianism, Kantian Ethics, and Natural Law. All five have ethic believes do justice, but have flaws, and strong point. An ethic theory to solve a problem is good. Following

Mill argues that all sources “of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort” (Mill 15). Through this statement, Mill and Singer’s perspectives realign. Singer states that “if we stopped feeding animals on grains and soybeans, the amount of food saved would-- if distributed to those who need it-- be more than enough to end hunger throughout the world” (Singer 220). Thus, the problem rests in the selfishness of affluent nations, who do not distribute their grain to poor nations. Singer furthermore argues that we could provide contraceptives to poor nations to slow their birth rates (Singer 241). By evenly distributing food and slowly the birth rate, human suffering caused by absolute poverty could cease to exist.

Jimmy carter once said, "We know that a peaceful world cannot long exist, one-third rich and two-thirds hungry." With the world now more interconnected than ever there might be a solution to world hunger by distribution of wealth. Peter Singer, in his article titled, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, takes this concept of unity that we have on a global scale and tries to tackle the issue of world hunger. Before we dive into the article we will focus on utilitarianism to help us understand his perspective better. Following, we will analyze Singer and his theory, by strongly arguing that famine should be given moral worth. A stance is made that if you are aware of suffering that is going on elsewhere than it is your responsibility to do something about it. He points out that it doesn’t matter if anyone else is helping nor does it matter the distance. Singer does make some good points, however, these do not come without objections.

In the article “ Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”, Garrett Hardin (1974) argues that rich people should not be responsible for the poor and that the effects of feeding the poor are threatening to the environment. As I stated before, the author’s argument is

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.

Since 1991, the southern half of Somalia, a poverty stricken African nation, has seen various tribal militias battle for dominance and power over individual regions of the country. Violence has plagued Mogadishu, the capital, since warlords ousted the former president. Mere months after the collapse of the government, men, women and children in torn clothes ran helplessly towards packages dropped from military planes towards the hot sand of their tiny village. This action was one of many attempts to help underdeveloped nations receive food by the United Nations' World Food Programme. Within his article titled "Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor", Garret Hardin, a well-known philosopher of ecology, analyzes the difficulty

- 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