Prajwal Niraula

PL-151 Contemporary Ethical Issues

Dr. P. Cvek

Criticism of Living on a Lifeboat

Garrett Hardin, the author of the article, is a neoconservative. He uses analogy of lifeboat to
represent a nation. This analogy primarily focuses on the limited resources available for people on board
and tends to consider the countries in isolation; immigrants thus become swimmers who are jumping from
one boat to another. In this essay, Hardin not only states that helping the poor is not morally required, but
in fact goes on as far as to say such actions are rather morally wrong. He presents a range of arguments to
support his view.
Hardin in his literature has particularly expressed his concern with the limit resources, and a
desire to avoid the economic as well as environmental crisis, which he feels is imminent. To depict the
urgency of the situation, he therefore uses the analogy of lifeboat, which he mentions has effectively
limited capacity. He justifies the analogy by pointing every nation has limited resources and has certain
carrying capacity. Thus, if a country is rich or poor depends on the ratio of these two quantities. A rich
country has more resources than is required by its people, while a poor country has fewer resources than
is required by its people. Setting this scenario, he proceeds to examine the question if it is the
responsibility of a rich nation to help a poor nation. Garrett answers the question with a strident no.
The authors first argument to support his claim rejecting immigrant (a question which he
considers similar to helping poor) on the board is that it compromises the safety of those already on the
board. Thus, helping the poor is a suicidal step. In denying the help it is not that the boat is incapable of
taking more people. However, Garett begins with a mindset that all nations in the world are potentially
overpopulated and are fragile ecosystem that needs protection from external factors, which include
immigrants, all the time. This mindset seems particularly to be influenced by the oil crisis in 1970s, as he
has mentioned the energy crunch for people to realize the fragility of the system. Should there be any
catastrophe; the additional resources available would work as a safety net. Thus, the author argues that

Prajwal Niraula
PL-151 Contemporary Ethical Issues
Dr. P. Cvek
even though rich nation may be capable of helping some immigrants, this would ultimately compromise
the safety.
He further undergirds his stance by pointing out that the population growth rate of developing
countries are almost three times higher than the population growth rate of developed countries. Hence,
even though the rich countries help the poor countries to match up the current needs, due to the
burgeoning population those measures would temporarily solve the problem only to give rise much worse
scenarios in the future. Using the same argument, Garrett maintains that immigration would ultimately
lead to ruin of the welcoming nation as the people from the poor country, if allowed to immigrate, would
populate faster than developed countries hence straining the resources of the rich country.
Perhaps the most famous argument Garrett is known for is Tragedy of the Commons which can
be summarized as mutual ruin is inevitable in the common. Garrett gives an example of common
grassland, which will be overgrazed because every shepherd likes to take maximum advantage from the
grassland; a natural psychological force which ultimately leads to ruination. He similarly predicts the
tragedy of the common would lead to ruination of industries such as fishing. Thus, the system of
commons, according to Hardin, is to be replaced by private ownership system to save the system from the
ultimate ruin.
Garrett also points out that in addition to the apparent cost, there are hidden cost to the helping
the poor which in turn promotes injustice. In the example Garrett uses he points out how donating food is
unjustifiable. By donating food, the government is essentially using tax payer money. This however
drives the demand of the food supply and in turn raises the cost of the food. Thus, not only do people in
developed countries end up paying for the service of helping the poor people, but they end up facing the
price hike. Also Garrett argues that aid promotes parasitism. He markedly points out that aid does not
teach the poor countries to be careful for emergency but instead provides false sense of assurance for
future emergencies.

Prajwal Niraula
PL-151 Contemporary Ethical Issues
Dr. P. Cvek
Garrett also provides argument for social Darwinism in that he supports the best will survive. He
mentions Tertullian quote, The sources of pestilence, famine wars and earthquakes have come to be
regarded as a blessing to overcrowded nations, since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the
human race. Garrett considers pruning itself is an important aspect for establishment of equilibration
nature, which would be affected by the creation of world food bank, which acts as the pawl of ratchet.
Having world food bank is an act of removing the equilibrating force, thus would escalate the situation,
which in turn would lead to the collapse of the whole system.
Garrett further evaluates some of the charitable works done by Rockefeller and Ford Foundation.
Here he compares human as the cancerous cells that overpower the environment they live in through
metastasis, and every life saved through these methods would never have a positive consequence. Garrett
at this points realizes that his argument has be dominantly favor of the rich communities, and attempts to
address some to the potential criticisms: how can you close door once you are getting better part of the
bargain or most Americans are immigrants, and on what ground can they claim what they have attained?
Garrett simply claims that this is rather unrealistic because Americans cannot go back to their native land.
He further argues that so is case with some European countries. Therefore, the current political boundary
for Garrett is the standard against which things are to be tested.
Throughout the argument Garrett is primarily motivated by the fear of ecological disaster, which
could come be accompanied with other disasters in economic and social sectors. Maintaining balance in
the society is of great important for Garrett, and for this the way of nature is not to be interfered with. In
fact, he argues more good is to come from the death of the unfit rather than their survival, and sums up
the argument by reminding that preserving nature for posterity should be one the most important priorities
of any nation.