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Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor

Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor. Garrett Hardin. Facts. Two thirds of all nations are poor One third are rich. The US is the wealthest of all. Metaphor. Each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people.

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Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor

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  1. Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor Garrett Hardin

  2. Facts Two thirds of all nations are poor One third are rich. The US is the wealthest of all

  3. Metaphor Each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. Outside the lifeboat swim the poor people. They would love to get in the boat and have the rich people share some of the wealth. What should the people in the boat do?

  4. More specific: A Moral Sea Suppose there are 50 people in the lifeboat and it has a capacity of 60. There are 100 people swimming outside. They are begging to get in.

  5. Options 1) We can adopt the Christian ideal or a Marxists view and take all 100 swimmers in. In such a case the boat would sink and everyone drowns. “Complete justice, complete catastrophe”. 2) we can admit just 10 of the 100 and fill the boat up to capacity. But who do we let in? Also we lose our “safety factor”. 3) Let no one on. Then our safety is possible but we have to keep guard that no one gets on board.

  6. Survival The third option offers us the only means of survival. This option however is morally abhorrent to many people. Hardin suggestion to those people is “Get out and yield your place to others.”

  7. Real World Problems Hunger Overpopulation

  8. Reproductive Differences 1972 US pop 210 million Increase .8% a year Increase pop in poor nations is 3.3% a year Doubling time is in poor nations 21 years in th US 87 years.

  9. Multiplying the Rich and the Poor 210 Million US 210 Million (Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Morocco, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines) 87 years later US 210 becomes 420 Million Other countries 210 becomes 354 Billion

  10. Spaceship Ethics “the tragedy of commons” Private property encourages people to care about the property in ways they would not if they did not own it. “Only the replacement of the system of the commons with a responsible system of control will save the land, air, water, and oceanic fisheries.”

  11. Food and Peace Program These humanitarian programs, such as the World Food Bank do not work. Not only will it not work, it will do more harm than good.

  12. Population Control the Crude Way Overpopulation Crisis Crop Failures and Famines Population Corrections

  13. Immigration Lifeboat Metaphor: almost a literal interpretation.

  14. Pure Justice vs. Reality Statue of limitation argument: Practical limitations must be adopted for communities to live and sustain themselves. Ideal forms of justice and equality have serious practical limitations.

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