Compare And Contrast Lifeboat Ethics And A Modest Proposal

One issue that we discussed in “Lifeboat Ethics” and in “A Modest Proposal” is whether or not the rich should help the poor and if the poor can contribute anything to society. Garrett Hardin and Jonathan Swift have different views on whether or not people should help the impecunious. Hardin, who has only been rich and never been poor, believes the starving don’t deserve help because it’s their fault that they are poor and that they are a waste rather than view them as assets. Swift, who has been rich and poor, believes that the poor can be salvageable and that the poor have a better chance at improving themselves.

In “Lifeboat Ethics,” Hardin does not want to share the resources with the impecunious because he sees it as a waste of resources. He sees the poor as a burden and he doesn’t believe that the less-fortunate will ever make a beneficial or valuable use of resources and offers no solutions to help to the poor. Swift has a different approach on the issue in ‘A Modest Proposal,” he believes that the poor can do better things with the resources than the rich can. He suggested two solutions to the British middle class either they pay the Irish for their babies and they cook and eat the infants to

take care of the overpopulation, no work and no food problems or that the wealthy should introduce “a vein of parsimony, prudence, and temperance” instead of frittering their money away on foreign luxury goods. (Swift, 391-392)
Hardin also believes that the poor could have been “taught to fish,” he states that it’s too late to do that.

Since the poor contribute nothing, they are draining the resources needed by everyone else. “Since the worlds resources are dwindling, the difference in the prosperity of the rich and poor can only increase,” Hardin writes (Lifeboat Ethics, 170). On the other hand Swift believes that everyone needs help and mercy at some point in their life. If the poor had jobs they would be able to contribute in order to replenish the resources they use. He indicates that, if the affluent were more conservative with the use of their money and resources by buying local goods, there would jobs for the poor and paying taxes in emergency situations would not be so

abrasive.
The rich live in big and comfortable houses some of which are bigger than hotels, and inside they have all then you only can imagine. In a lot of the rich families the parents are so busy that they don’t take care of their own children. The parents provide a nanny to look after them. The parents also have a servant to do the housework and all they are asking for. Often is it poor people from the countryside who have jobs like this. When a poor person gets a job like this, his life is saved. Aggregate to a well-paid job they get a place to live, free food and clothes so the poor don’t complain about how wretched their lives are all they do is try to make ends meet but rich people complain all the time about petty stuff if their life isn’t going the way they want it to.
Therefore both essays have logical reasons but Swifts solutions is better for the economy and it shows that just because it sounds logical doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for society. His solution will not only help the poor but it will even help the rich if they ever need any help. It is our privilege to help the poor because they have a better chance at making the world a better place. Poor people needs anybody’s assistance to get them out of poverty. A poor person can either be born into poverty if the person’s parents were poor or become poor at one point in the person’s life because of a tragic event. “By helping others, you will learn how to help yourself” (Aung San Suu Kyi, brainy quotes)