Analysis Of Lifeboat Ethics By Garret Hardin

Within his article titled "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor", Garret Hardin, a well-known philosopher of ecology, analyzes the difficulty associated with providing aid to underprivileged nations. Hardin's argument for the preservation of well-to-do societies is symbolized by his extended metaphor of each society as a lifeboat, with the citizens of rich nations riding amongst a sea of drowning destitute people. Hardin used imagery of a lifeboat to pose and answer a single question, “what should the lifeboat passengers do?” (290). In this scenario, Hardin placed the reader into a metaphor where the passengers of a lifeboat represent the rich in their nation and those drowning as the citizens of poor nations. If the passengers let all of those drowning into their small boat they would go over capacity and capsize, causing everyone to drown. 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 seat. Hardin concluded that the survival of the …show more content…
Where there is data Hardin leaves out parts of it that contradicts the statement he builds on it. Hardin states that one-third of the world is rich and two-thirds was notably poorer. He then builds his argument on it saying there are rich nations and poor nations. Firstly, many of these rich nations are in extreme debt and many of its citizens are in poverty. Next, Hardin says that one third of the world is rich but he doesn’t explain how it is distributed, the way he builds on this it seems the rich are in one or two nations that are well off but that is not true. one percent of the worlds populace is richer than average. These one percenters live all around the world, they live in underdeveloped countries and developed ones. By neglecting to tell the reader this Hardin makes his paper seem even more