Population Watch Ethics

This paper can be an excellent source for anyone researching into how to fight overpopulation. Hardin provides several other viewpoints that show he did not selectively choose evidence or distort it. Hardin proceeds from point to point logically which allowed the reader to comprehend the main idea effortlessly. The author glided to how the people of poor

Population Growth is an issue that exists in today’s world that needs to be confronted before it becomes out of hand. The population itself has reached overwhelming numbers making it a problem that could turn to be dangerous. The amount of humans that the earth can support or the carrying capacity is slowly rising but at a much slower rate than the population growth rate. The increasing growth rate has its negative effects environmentally, agriculturally, socially, and economically and also has its positive effects nationally, and economically. The government is brainstorming and trying to come up with ways to decrease

I picked a ridiculously silly subject title for this rather serious post (that is one of the best and funniest Mean Girls quote though). On a more serious note now, I believe that contraceptions and empowerment of women will help with slow the continued population growth. Sex is a natural act for people all over the world. Sadly, not all women are not educated about contraceptions, do not have access to contraceptions, not allowed to use contraceptions and some do not support the use of contraceptions (which is their right). The textbook discusses the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) which "focused on individual rights, especially women's rights, including their right to make reproductive decisions" (410). The conference also discusses the important of educating women and educated women typically engage in safe sex and have more access to family-planning methods. Contraceptions and family-planning is still a prominent topic today in the United States; however, women typically in the middle east and third world countries have no real access to these preventions at all. According to a New York Times article on birth control by Nicholas Christof, "women in Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Somalia, East Timor and Ugana all have six or more child each, the U.N. says. In rural Africa, I've come across women who have never heard of birth control. According to estimates from the Guttmacher Institute, a respected

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

“The Tragedy of the Commons”, according to Hardin, is a societal problem arising from individuals depleting shared resources (1968, pg 1243). Hardin’s “commons” are the limited resources shared by society that are not regulated. In commercial cod fisheries, the commons is the fishing ground, or the ocean. The tragedy of the commons refers to a dilemma— individuals, maximizing their own utility, could collectively cause the depletion of common resources. This is because assuming that humans are self-interested rational beings, every individuals’ interest is to maximize their own gain by exploiting public resources, while the collective interest is to use the resources sustainably. Likewise, in commercial cod fisheries, the individual’s interest is to catch as many fish as possible to maximize profit. Yet, the collective interest is to fish at a level sustainable for cod fish to reproduce, so that not only our generation, but also our future generations will not run out of cod. Since we have hardly resolved the gap between individual interest and collective interest, the problem persists. This gap has already led to devastating consequences. In 2015, the cod stock in the Gulf of Maine is at 18 percent of what scientists deem to be a healthy population.

Garrett Hardin, talks about population control, which is a big situation in many cases. He asks many questions, if it is morally right to change the way, society works. He talks about mostly about breeding rights. He questions, if those who over breeding are pushing their community to extinction. If a population over populates, the more demand they need for shelter, food and money. Which in some essentials, cannot work because of the area they are in. The more populated the more will starve and die. It is great to have more people in the world, but to put people at risk isn’t a question. Therefore, there must be control to keep issues from going out of hand.

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

Garrett Hardin first proposed in 1998 that the tragedy of the commons cannot be solved with a technical solution, which he claims is the most socially acceptable type of solution. Hardin goes on to point out and question social boundaries by challenging his reader to ask him or herself what is “good” (Hardin 1244). He acknowledges that “good” is usually considered to be a varied concept that is open to human interpretation and construction; however, “natural selection commensurates the incommensurable” (1244). Hardin’s proposal that freedom is the catalyst for ruin in a communal society is one of his most controversial claims because he argues that autonomy leaves room for selfish motivations that lead to the destruction of the overall good. For example, Hardin briefly discusses world pollution. The atmosphere and oceans are shared resourced or “commons” for which many people do not feel responsible, and thus, they are commons which have been damaged and polluted, affecting both those culpable and inculpable of the created “cesspool” (1245). Hardin’s interpretation challenges traditional morals that stem

Imagine if humans were not allowed to have babies. This is what people in the story “The Giver” go through but do not even know it! In their life they have a laborer that delivers the babies and the people in the community (basically a suburb) have to sign up to parent a baby. What if people could not feel love. Population control involves things like abortion and adoption and how both can be cruel things but other times not. Places like china enforce it for food reasons and climate reasons. However, humans should be able to have as many children as they would like all around the world.

Renowned environmentalist Lester R. Brown wrote about 10 Troubling Trends we’re seeing in in our environment and in our global ecosystem. His fourth point on his list, population growth, is one that has been an issue since the 1950s. As far as our population, urbanization, and industrialization goes, functionalists recognize that while it has been functional in creating a more effective, interdependent, and productive society, it has also been problematic. It has weakened social bonds and an absence of norms. We have began to lose our ability to function effectively. Even with our growth of large complex societies due to the population getting bigger and bigger. Brown’s ninth point on his list is the spreading of hunger. This is a direct

In his essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” author Garrett Hardin presents several points for his argument against the population problem. The population is growing at an exponential rate leading to a decline in the quality of life for mankind. Due to the fact that the population is growing so must the energy available, if mankind is to survive. Hardin’s argument is that if the population continues to grow with the laws that are currently set in place, the quality of life will eventually decline. Hardin states “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all” (Hardin 23).

This suggests that when land is not privately owned, and each private owner responsible, there will be at least one public user who neglects his responsibilities of nurturing and caring for the common parks, rivers, and pastures. Sadly, there will always be irresponsible users who take advantage of the privilege to use the common resources while neglecting to preserve and nurture them. I witness this irresponsibility on a regular basis while walking down the street or enjoying beautiful parks. When users of the commons neglect their individual responsibilities, parks are left smothered in trash, rivers that were once sparkling are suffocated with oil, and pastures are destroyed with over use and over population. With misuse of the commons, views that were once breathtaking in beauty are now breathtaking in stench and disgust.

Laws partially exist to impose self-control where it might not otherwise occur. As a society, we have a tendency to view our freedoms and resources as limitless, to use as we see fit. Individuals are willfully blind, they are the cause of their now limited freedoms and resources. If a person owns something, they are absolutely free to use it right up until it threatens another person. In the case “The Fight over the Redwoods”, the environment’s free, but limited God-given resources are continuously depleting, from our exploitations. Adam Smith’s invisible hand theory and Garrett Hardin’s “tragedy of commons” make prevalent in their theories the consequences of these particular attitudes. An individual’s along with society’s self-interest can

We live in a world where sometimes we are told there are endless resources. The population of the world is growing rapidly, so the question we must ask, are we going to run into a problem where there are too many people in this world and not enough resources to accompany this rapid growth in population? In the article “Tragedy of the Commons” written by Garrett Hardin, Hardin believes that the population problem cannot be solved in a technical way because the problem involves questions of human freedoms and rights, both of which are issues of morality as opposed to scientific fact. He goes on to explain how we have become too self-interested in the short term that we aren’t looking at the long-term affects. In order to fix the problem

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